Othello business closing doors

Owner leaves proud of store's history

OTHELLO— The neon "Open" outside Potter Farm and Home glows bright, but the "Quitting Business" sign below shows it won't always be the case.

Owner Scott Potter said he decided to close the business, which he's been part of since he was 8 years old and swept the floors as a box boy, because it's time to move on.

"There's so much history," he said. "I'm proud of what we've done through the years."

Among those successes Potter takes pride in, is the fact the business is the oldest family-owned business in Othello, he believes, and reaching a milestone four years ago in filling out its one-millionth prescription.

"That's a lot of years of doing prescriptions," he said with a laugh.

Scott's father Jack purchased the business, an existing drug store, in 1959, when total space was 2,000 square-feet. Through the years, the Potters would try to remodel and expand the business every five years, in the interest of keeping up to date.

The business never closed one day during any of the remodels, Scott said. He recalled trying to talk to customers on the telephone in the midst of jackhammers.

While the Othello location is the first and final, at one time, there were stores in Moses Lake, Ephrata, Quincy and Yakima.

In order to compete with big-box retailers, Scott remembered, the store brought in several franchise programs he found to be successful.

Scott took over the business from his father in the late 1980s. Jack is still working, he said, at the Columbia Basin Health Association these days.

About two years ago, the business switched from offering a pharmacy to a drug store, the result of a shortage of pharmacists in the Othello area.

"Retail is a lot of hours," Scott said. "I'm tired of working all those hours."

There's no set date for the business to close, he said, but it will happen when all the merchandise is out. He plans to assist the store's six employees in finding other work. The building is for sale.

"I hope that something positive for Othello comes into this building," Scott said.

He doesn't have any plans for the future, save for taking some time off before deciding what he would like to do. Chances are good he will remain in Othello, he said.

"Having lived here all my life, Othello's all I know," he said.

Closing the long-running business brings a mixture of disappointment that the store's ending, and a sense of excitement about doing something else, Scott said.

He has no regrets, he said. The diversity of the business allowed the store to offer everything from prescriptions to light bulbs.

"We could help people out, from a plumbing problem to a cough and cold," he said.