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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 43 PHOTO: YS HISTORICAL SOCITEY Furay’s Drug Store — another local pharmacy — in the 1940s. The building currently houses Glen Garden Gifts. PHOTO: DIANE CHIDDISTER Tim Rogers was beloved as Town’s Drug manager and pharmacist for 15 years, until his death in 2014. side,” Jim Johnson said of his parents, Carl and Sue, in a 2017 News story about the couple. The Johnsons prided themselves on keeping the store constant over the years, and the News reported in 1996, “people often remarked that they felt comfortable coming back after many years to find the shampoo and candy bars in the same place.” The Johnsons also resisted the computer age, using a manual typewriter to type out prescription labels. While the typewriter may have taken more time, the store saved money on new equipment and stayed in business longer than many other small indepen- dent stores that became computerized, Sue Johnson said. More than anything, the Johnsons provided friendly service. “People would say it was his laugh that made them well,” Sue Johnson said of her husband. “We tried to make it a happy store.” “Doc” Erbaugh died in 1981; Bud Johnson in 2004; and Carl Johnson in 2019. Unable to find an inde - pendent buyer when they retired in 1996, Carl and Sue Johnson sold the store’s | Early pharmacy stock to Revco/CVS, and the space, still owned by the Odd Fellows Lodge, sat empty for more than a year. Seeking a pharmacy to continue where Erbaugh and Johnson’s left off, the Odd Fellows in 1997 leased the site to Fred Messina, then owner of Town Drug in Jamestown. Messina, who died in March 2016, brought the Town Drug name to Yellow Springs with him. Tim Rogers, beloved for his accessibility and per- sonal attention, became manager and lead pharma- cist of the store in 1999. He told the News in 2005 that being a good pharma- cist means caring for one’s customers. “A good pharmacist goes home every night and prays to God that he hasn’t harmed anyone during the day,” Rogers said. Rogers’ longtime associ - ate Janice Blandford, who retired in 2018, became lead pharmacist after Rogers’ death in 2014, con- tinuing his personal style of customer care. According to state busi- ness registration records, the local pharmacy was acquired in 2007 by the REM Corp., which was pur- chased in 2018 by Benzer Pharmacy of Florida. Other drug stores have operated in the village over the years, including the town’s earliest pharmacies owned by Charles Ridgeway and J.B. Hirst. Contempo- raneous with Erbaugh and Johnson’s was Furay Drug Store, owned by the parents of Hall of Fame musician Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield, and known for a time as Rexall Drugs, which was located at 239 Xenia Ave., the present site of Glen Garden Gifts. —Diane Chiddister contributed to this story. Prior to World War I, the corner pharmacy was at the other end of Xenia Avenue — roughly where The Winds Wine Cellar is now located. The Ridgway Pharmacy, one of the town’s earliest drug stores, was owned and operated for about 50 years by Charles Ridgway (or Ridgeway, depending upon the sources). An 1871 county directory lists Chas. Ridgeway’s firm as, “dealers in drugs, medicines, paints, oils, varnishes, dry stuffs, pure wines, liquors.” The pharmacy was destroyed by fire in 1896. PHOTO: YS HISTORICAL SOCIETY PHOTO: ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE