Publix had 35 stores (only in FL) when Bob started in 1956. (Now....to the credit of many Neapolitans...there are 1,014 Publix supermarkets in: Florida - 729, Georgia - 177, South Carolina - 42, Alabama - 39 & Tennessee - 27.)
Made manager in 1959 (age 25).......came to Naples when store opened in 1962. He requested moving due to the Everglades and hunting & fishing. First Naples visit was on a Sunday.......deadsville with only Four Corner's gas station and Fifth AV Rexall open. Realtor Chuck Grimm showed the family Naples........and horrors!.....lots were selling for the outrageously high price of $55,000 in Port Royal. One could buy an average home for that much! heh-heh. Store #76 was often called 'the tail end" but became the Number ONE volume store in the chain. Winter season was horrendous but the crew was FANTASTIC. The stock men, part-timers and cashiers (Betty Harris, Lorene Adams, Peggy Wall, Ann Colwell, Alice Gilley, Lois Benfield, Bea Herbert, Mildred Salter, and others) weathered it all year after year. Bob always thought he had the FINEST team including great assistant managers. He worked 27 years and has been retired 27 years. Bob worked and loved Publix (being accused of having 'green blood' (Publix color). Bob knew the Jenkins, Blanton’s and founders of Pubix as it was a 'family geared' company. He purchased stock and badgered.......truly badgered employees to do the same. He has been happy to see it benefited many. Having about 50 teenagers working for him at almost any given time has made him know many Neapolitans and their families. He was able to see immature boys develop into successful, responsible adult men. His own three sons (Ken, Phil, & Troy) and three daughters (Robyn, Monica, & Colette) worked at Publix 76 in their youth and it is still in the family with the third generation there. A daughter married a son of a Publix manager. Retirement came in 1983 when he was 48 years old and there were 285 stores. At age 76, Bob is still the staunchest admirer of Publix. It is still his “bread and butter”. Bob delights and is encouraged seeing employees at many Publix stores showing signs of the potential he saw in the young ones that called Publix their first job. Publix let him enjoy 22 consecutive summers driving from Naples to Alaska for fishing and having a tractor to play on in North Florida. Naples is and will remain his home and Publix………and those that have helped make it grow, will be forever in his heart.
