Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Thomason's Drug Store Hits Milestone Serving Gurdon

For 50 years Gurdon has been served by Thomerson's Drug Store.

Roy E. Thomerson purchased the drug store, then Milburn's Drug Store, in Oct. 1950 and it has been in the Thomerson family since.

Now, the drug store is celebrating 50 years of service to the people of Gurdon.

Jobs were hard to find when Roy graduated high school, said Louise Thomerson, his wife, and because he was a good baseball player, he was able to get a job at Acme Brick, where he played first base.

However, World War II came along and Thomerson served his country in the U.S. Air Force.

After the war, Thomerson attended the Collage of the Ozarks in Clarksville on the GI Bill, graduating in1949.

He then went to work for his uncle, I.B. Fuller, at Fuller's Drug Store in Arkadelphia.

Roy and Louise had been married since 1939, with her giving birth to Larry in 1950 while the family was in Arkadelphia. He was four months old when the Thomerson clan moved to Gurdon.

He has a sister, Martha Thomas, who teaches kindergarten at Gurdon. She and her husband, John Thomas, have two daughters, Kara and Emily.

When Thomerson bought Milburn's Drug Store, the building didn't have any form of heating or air conditioning, Louise said. A ceiling fan was used to stir up the air inside.

"It was hotter inside than on the sidewalk during the summer," she said.

It was also cold during the winter months.

However, because the drug store had a soda fountain and booths, it quickly became "the" place for young people to hang out. "If they had a nickel, they'd be in there," she said.

When he was old enough, Larry worked at the soda fountain.

The drug store, as many did back then, also carried magazines and comic books. Larry used to read the comics while working at the there.

In 1964, the Thomerson's bought out the Baily Drug store, at 113 North First Street and moved to the current location of Thomerson's Drug Store.

Larry graduated from Gurdon High School in 1968, then attended Henderson State University for two years before transferring to Northeast Louisiana University, where he studied to be a pharmacist.

He graduated from NELU in 1973, returning to Gurdon in 1977 to take over the family business.

He took over full operation of the business in 1983, with his father passing away five years later in 1988.

However, in 73 when Larry graduated college, his uncle, Robert Jacobs returned to Gurdon to help out at the drug store. He's still there, working part time for Larry.

Being a pharmacist runs in the family. In fact, there were nine members of the Fuller family (on his mother's side) who were pharmacists, along with three doctors.

Roy and Robert both went to college on the GI Bill, with Roy returning to Arkadelphia, while Robert went to Texas. Robert came back in the 1970s.

Larry said his father wound up in Gurdon because he was looking for a drug store to buy. John Milburn was looking to retire, so the two reached an agreement and the rest became history.

During high school, Larry considered being a science teacher, but his mother explained the economic facts of life to him, changing his mind.

After college, Larry worked at a pharmacy in Hope, where he met his wife, Gwendolyn Phillips. They married in 1975 and have two children, Holly and Mark. He also has one grandchild.

Holly is a special education teacher with the Gurdon School District, while Mark is in his senior year at HSU studying sports management.

Currently, Thomerson's Drug Store is a full-service retail pharmacy with emphasis on a gift department. "It will rival any in the surrounding area," he said.

"There have been a lot of changes in the last 50 years," Louise said. "The people here are wonderful, and I've never had any regrets about moving to Gurdon."

She recalled how her husband worked long hours to build the business and then had to install new fixtures.

The accounting and book work was all done by hand, as were the statements.

Her husband, she said, would hand grind the medication as prescribed by doctors, because medicines weren't pre-made as they are today.Life, she said, wasn't all about work for Roy, as he loved to play golf. In fact, he'd play golf any change he got, as would her brother Robert.

Who opened the drug store of a morning would depend on who had the first tee time.

She told how the weather was bad one Sunday and the two decided to play golf in spite of the sleet and rain coming down.

As they reached the ninth hole, Robert suggested they not play it as people would see them. Roy's response was, "The fools shouldn't be out here anyway," as the two played on.

For a long time, though, in the early days, Roy worked seven-days-a-week and 10-hours-a-day to make sure the business succeeded.

He was the first to arrive and last to leave each day, making sure the floors were swept and mopped before he left and washing the prescription counter with alcohol before going home.

"It's been a wonderful life here," Louise said. "I wouldn't change a thing."

Larry has also been involved in the world of sports, playing baseball in high school and a little golf now and again. But his real love is being an official for high school football teams. He's been officiating prep ball for 20 years and plans to continue as long as possible.

The world of pharmacy, he said, has been changing drastically over the years. More and more is being done through mail order, as the mail order companies are able to purchase the drugs cheaper than retail pharmacies can.

Still, Thomerson plans to continue operating the drug store until he retires, something a long way down the road.