Ike Godsey lives ... at Food Lion

There are a lot of jobs I know nothing about. I am not talking about astrophysicist. I am talking about jobs that are right here where I live. I have known people in law enforcement, but I have never known personally a bail bonds person. I don’t even know exactly how that business works. I have known people who managed restaurants, but I have never known a person who owned a fast-food franchise. My maternal grandfather was a foreman for road building crews before I was born, but I have never known anyone in road building or paving. I have known people who wrote books, but I have never known anyone in the publishing industry. I have had students who worked as cashiers in grocery stores, but I have never known anyone in grocery store management despite spending a ridiculous amount of time shopping for food. Never until today, that is.

I stopped by Food Lion to get garbage bags. I was completely out after using a bunch of them for the weeds I pulled this weekend. I was wandering around the store with a roll of paper towels in my hand searching for garbage bags when the store manager popped up and asked if he could help me find anything. I had seen this same man for years but knew nothing about him. Here was my chance. “Yes,” I answered. “I was looking for you.” I had already decided I wanted to interview him, and here he was. How odd. So I grabbed him, or rather he graciously invited me to his office. I got to go back where all the stuff is before it is on the shelves. Maybe this doesn’t seem very exciting to you, but I’m a curious person. I was thrilled to get backstage at Food Lion.

Daniel Pritchett got into the grocery store business part-time while attending Dunsmore Business College in Staunton after graduating from R.E. Lee High School. The one thing he knew as he set forth in life was that he didn’t want to move from place to place as his father had done in his career with J.C. Penney. He started out working for Reid’s and then moved along through a series of grocery jobs mostly in this area. He has worked about every job in the store.

In an era when it is rare to be able to move from entry jobs into management, it was good to know there are exceptions. Food Lion looks for management trainees within the organization. This used to be true across American industry, but today you are supposed to go to college (at great personal expense) and even graduate business school to enter a management training program.

Pritchett said, “I’m proud of having 131 people who have worked for me move from part-time to full-time or into management training. I also have one of the lowest turnover rates. If you can’t work for Daniel Pritchett, you probably can’t work for anyone.” He said the corporation used to frown upon his management style back when distance was supposed to be kept between managers and employees. About 10 years ago, he said, the corporation decided that thinking of the employees as family was the way to go, and he had already arrived. The man I met was happy with his career, proud of his family, dedicated to his church and living a Christian life even though, “I have to sit in front of this computer more and more. I’d rather be out with the people.”  (Just for the record, we are buying less meat and cheaper cuts and choosing store brands over name brands during this economic downturn.)

On “The Waltons” television show if a person wanted five pounds of flour, she went to Ike Godsey’s General Merchandise, and Ike got it off the shelf. That was before Piggly Wiggly invented self-service stores in 1916 in Memphis. Much has been written about Americans being detached from pigs, cows and chickens and other sources of their food. Almost nothing has been said about how we no longer know Ike Godsey. You can shop for groceries your whole life and never meet him. Today I met him, and I have to say, it was quite a thrill. 

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.