When he graduated from the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in Richmond 50 years ago, Bill Copeland had never even heard of Hillsville. Little did he know then that he would not only move to the county seat of Carroll County, but he would spend the next 45 years becoming one of the area’s most well-known and respected pharmacists and individuals.

Much has changed since Copeland uprooted his family from Danville and brought his wife Bobbie Jean and their three young children to Hillsville to buy interest in the Carroll Drug in 1965. The hometown pharmacy has survived a fire (thanks to fellow local businessman Glenn Jackson), a move, and a name change through the years. But the one thing that has remained the same has been the smiling, joking man behind the counter of the business that would go on to become Blue Ridge Pharmacy.

The road to Hillsville

Before he could graduate from MCV, Copeland served four years in the Navy during the Korean War. And although he didn’t fight overseas, Copeland was assigned to the fleet marines in Camp Lejeune, N.C., an experience that taught him valuable life lessons.

“You think the Navy boot camp is something you should try Marine boot camp,” Copeland said. “But they did something important. They teach you to look out for each other, not to leave anybody behind. It was a very valuable experience for us.”

Once he was released from the Navy, Copeland went back to MCV, where he graduated in 1960. Upon graduation, Copeland returned to his hometown of Danville. Copeland spent the first five years of his professional life there working at Lea’s Drugstore until a dinner conversation changed his life.

“We were in a restaurant one evening for a social pharmacy meeting and at the dinner table someone said, ‘I am going up to Hillsville to start a drugstore.’ And I said, ‘Where in the world is Hillsville?’ He said, ‘You go right straight up (U.S.) 58 there.’ I didn’t think anymore about it because we were building a house in Danville, thought we was going to stay there,” Copeland said. “We had talked about moving to a smaller town rather than in a city. I saw this young man about three months later and I said, ‘Bob, how is that business doing up in Hillsville?’ Bob was a single guy, didn’t have a wife and children or a mortgage. And he said, ‘Man, I went up there and looked at that. I wouldn’t live in that place for $1,000 a day.’ It was just too country for him.”

Copeland and his wife were building a house in Danville at the time, but it wasn’t completed. But for some fateful reason, Bobbie Jean couldn’t forget those dinner conversations when she asked William to drive to Hillsville to take a look around. Nothing was particularly beautiful about Carroll County that day, especially since it was during the winter, in February of 1965. But as they drove into Hillsville in their 1954 Chevrolet, they could see how busy Main Street was with all its factories during that time.

“We had always wanted to spend a couple of hours in Hillsville and look around. We ended up staying the whole day,” Copeland said. “All of a sudden it was dinnertime and we went down to the Town House Restaurant and sat there and talked a few minutes. The first thing we knew it was bedtime. We didn’t have anything except for what we had on. So we spent the night in the Knob Hill Motel and had to buy a toothbrush. Bobbie and I went home and after about a week of trying to check out all the reasons why and why not, we decided that we would come up here, and we did.”

Even though the couple didn’t have much money, they did have a little credit. So they went to Virginia National Bank, signed a single piece of paper — a 90-day note — and bought interest in Carroll Drug. Every 90 days, Copeland went back to renew until his interest was paid for three years later.

Even though Copeland only knew one person in the entire town — Dr. Robert Jones, a friend from medical school — another doctor, dentist Mack Goad, took it upon himself to take Copeland to Fancy Gap United Methodist Church for a men’s meeting and supper.

“He introduced me to some folks and made me feel welcome,” Copeland said. “All the people on the street at that business made us feel welcome.”

Temporary setback

When Copeland bought interest in Carroll Drug back in 1965, the business was located at the corner of Main Street and East Grayson Street, where a United Country real estate office is currently located, across the state from the current Carter Bank & Trust. The building was old, Copeland recalls, and had some peculiarities as it had been built 50 or 60 years prior to that. After only about two years in town, on April Fool’s Day, 1967, Copeland woke up to an eerie phone call, one he originally thought was a prank.

“A phone call came to our house at 6 in the morning saying the drug store is on fire. I said, ‘Are you kidding? It’s April Fools.’ He said, ‘Look out the window.’ I looked out the window and could see the smoke,” Copeland said.

When he got in sight of Carroll Drug, the front end of the store blew out, sending glass everywhere and shaving cans flying across the street. Amazingly, the local fire department was able to save all of the pharmacy’s prescription files except for just a few that were lying on the counter.

At the time, there were three or four apartment buildings above Carroll Drug, and thankfully all the residents got out safely, Copeland said. But at the same time, the future looked bleak for the new local pharmacist. But relief came in the form of another businessman on Main Street, Glenn Jackson, who still owns the Family Shoe Store and then owned other nearby businesses. Even now, nearly a half a century later, the story still brings tears to Copeland’s eyes.

“I had never had experienced anything like this before and I was trying to determine what to do. Mr. Glenn Jackson was on the street and I said, ‘I don’t know what I am going to do. I might just put a trailer in here and park it on Main Street and reopen our pharmacy in that trailer,’” Copeland said. “Well, Glenn Jackson and his crew emptied his building. It was full of shoes and stuff, he had a large inventory where the Cooley’s law offices are. He emptied that building on a Saturday, worked all day Saturday to empty that building so we could set up our pharmacy. We worked the weekend with a drug company from Roanoke and a lot of volunteers.”

Jackson and his crew, with the help of some firemen, helped Copeland set up the pharmacy temporarily. He operated Carroll Drug out of the building for a year while the burnt building was demolished and constructed by E.W. Utt, Elden Utt and their construction crew. Copeland said he is forever grateful to what Jackson and so many others did for him, a young pharmacist just starting a new life in a new town.

“Mr. Jackson would not let us pay him, would not take any money. I never forgot that,” said Copeland. “I did get some money to a couple of those guys personally, but not nearly what it meant to us. We were out of business Saturday, not opened on Sunday, and we were reopened on Monday morning. The cooperation of those people to put us back in business, we were only closed one day, and I have never forgot that. That’s always left an impression on me.”

A new chapter

After reconstruction, it was business as usual at Carroll Drug at the corner of Main and East Grayson Street. The drugstore sponsored several youth league sports teams in the area and featured a soda fountain that harkens back to days of old.

“It was a meeting place. Back in those days there was no restrictions on smoking,” Copeland said. “Everybody sat there and smoked a cigarette and talked about their problems.”

The building remained Carroll Drug through the remainder of the 1960s, 70s and most of the 1980s. At the dawn of the millennium’s final decade, Carroll Drug changed its location and its name. In December of 1989, the long-time local business moved beside the current post office to 416 South Main Street. As the result of a contest for a new name, Carroll Drug became Blue Ridge Pharmacy.

“Independent pharmacy is a difficult challenge when you have the big chains to work with, but it has worked out real well. It was a corporate change. We had a little contest to come up with a name, and more and more people came up with Blue Ridge Pharmacy instead of Carroll or naming it after a person,” Copeland said. “It was a corporate change in ownership and it just worked out. We moved out there in December of 1989 and two weeks later it snowed a bunch. I remember it snowed and we didn’t have any business for two weeks.”

Over the years, Copeland’s work has been recognized widely. He was elected state pharmacist of the year by the Virginia Pharmacy Association in 1978. That same year, Copeland was elected to serve as president of the Virginia Pharmacist Association, a job that required visiting each pharmacy district in the state, from Grundy to Arlington to Cape Charles. During his early days in Carroll County, Copeland served as a dedicated member of the Jaycees before moving on to the Rotary Club in more recent years. That type of community service caught the eye of others in 1997 as Copeland was awarded the Bowl of Hygeia Award, an honor that goes annually to one pharmacist in each state, each of the 10 Canadian provinces, and Puerto Rico. As part of the honor, Copeland and his wife were awarded a four-day trip to the City of Brotherly Love, where Copeland followed the famous path of Rocky Balboa and ran up the 72 front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“I was young enough to do that, run up those steps,” Copeland said. “I had on a suit and Bobbie said, ‘In those clothes?’ But I tried it anyway.”

But before making a name across the state, Copeland started as a Danville import just trying to get to know folks in Hillsville and Carroll County. It was that desire that led to a newspaper article in a 1966 edition of The Carroll News that has continued for the past 44 years.

“Ina (Horton) was the publisher when The Carroll News was located across the street from Carroll Drug. I told her there is not many people that know me because I wasn’t born and raised here,” Copeland said. “She said, ‘Well, why don’t you write a little article for the paper.’ One article.”

Since 1966, Copeland’s column, William Tells ‘Em, has featured whatever is on the pharmacist’s mind at the time, primarily focusing on positive and uplifting news items. It has been a staple of the newspaper ever since.

“All in all, Carroll County turned out to be a blessing for us,” Copeland said. “We were fortunate to be welcomed into the community.”