 Pharmacy manager Tom H. Furman admisters a flu shot to pharmacy technician Andrea N. Hicks at the Boone Drug on King St. The business offers a system in which students can obtain prescriptions and have pharmacy bills sent to their parents. Photo by James Fay |
by PATRICK BABCOCK
Lifestyles Reporter
Boone Drug on King Street is a permanent fixture in the Town of Boone, featuring a grill, soda fountain and student-first service.
“We’ve been here since before ASU was officially founded and our first store was opened in 1919 downtown,” pharmacist manager Tom H. Furman said. “We’ve since grown to 13 locations in and around Boone.”
Appalachian State University students are an important demographic for Boone Drug, Furman said.
“ASU faculty and students have always been part of the diversity of our clients,” Furman said.
“We
usually have quite a good flow of students in here,” employee Roy C.
DeBoard said. “I think they like the service and I know they like the
food."
Boone Drug prides itself on being a purveyor of local flavor and being a place to feel at home in Boone, Furman said.
“We’re
locally owned and operated and have been since we opened early in the
1900s,” Furman said. “And that gives us… a unique understanding of what
our clients like and what they don’t like.”
They offer a system which allows students to receive prescriptions and bill their parents, Furman said.
“We have
a charge account system that, once it’s established, it can be used at
any of our locations. It’s the same account number and is processed and
sent out accordingly,” Furman said.
Furman stressed the Boone Drug policy of caring for clients.
“Last
year, the flu season hit the same time frame that it always hits, which
is mid-February, and for whatever reason, the ASU infirmary did not
carry Tamiflu, which is the only oral antiviral drug that the current
flu will respond to,” Furman said.
“It was
unfortunate because we would see, literally, 10 students, 12 students
at a time come through our front door from the infirmary, all of them
sick with the flu, to buy a $100 box of Tamiflu.”
The flu
shot, he said, is an important preventative measure, but Boone Drug
offers a variety of alternative treatments for those who do not receive
the inoculation.
“Get it
somewhere – it doesn’t have to be here. But, believe me, when February
rolls around, it’s something that’s available and I encourage the
students to consider it,” Furman said. “It’s a little preventative
measure now or they’re going to pay a lot of grief and money later.”
Furman believes strongly the same attitude that made Boone Drug such a fixture in Boone is still alive and well today.
“Even
though some of the founders from 100 years ago are not still here we
strongly feel that a lot of their principles are still here,” Furman
said. “So even though you don’t see the same faces… behind the pharmacy
counter, you still see what was important to them, which was to take
care of the patient.”
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