NEW LINEUP, FAMILIAR PLAYERS AT SPUR’S LAWRENCE BROTHERS GROCERY
Spur and Dickens County weren’t exactly unfamiliar places to James Robinson back in 2009 when he applied to the local Lawrence Brothers IGA grocery store, but picking up stakes and moving fulltime from the Metroplex was still something of a culture shock.
Raised in the Fort Worth suburbs of Hurst and Haltom City, Robinson claimed ancestors in the Spur area for generations back. His grandfather, LaFayette Robinson, who died in 1991, had been a local bus driver, rancher and constable. Robinson’s father, Orville, was born here in 1927 and married into the Young family of Afton.
Still, James had already spent more than three decades in the big-city grocery business, so applying for the assistant manager job at the family-owned Lawrence Brothers was an adjustment at first, as it was for his wife, Laurie a Dallas native, as well.
After 15 years here in Spur, he retired last week with fond memories.
Robinson turns over the reins to longtime assistant manager C. C. Noland, who came to the store in 2012 when Ron Ray was the manager.
Noland said he grew up in Texline and cowboyed around the Panhandle but came to Spur to help out when his aunt and uncle moved here. “Ron Ray hired me to sack for 15 hours a week, but I went full-time shortly after that.” When Ray left four months later, Robinson was promoted to manager, and made Noland assistant manager that same week.
The pair have made an inseparable team ever since.
Robinson “liked to tease people and make them smile, and I did too,” said Noland. “He’d rather be kind in managing people,” and that’s a philosophy Noland has followed as well.
Both Robinson and Noland credit the Sweetwaterbased MAL Enterprises with setting a communityfriendly example. “They are here to serve the community, customers and employees — and they have to make some pocket change on the side,” Robinson joked. “They’re good people to work for, and I enjoyed every moment of it.”
Still, while local charities and school groups benefit from Lawrence Brothers’ generosity, Noland acknowledged the pricing challenges posed by national chains. Rural stores like Spur must buy wisely to compete, but they also get to know their customers’ preferences.
Both men praised their customers, too.
Asked what he liked best about his job even though it’s a seven-day-a-week responsibility, Noland was quick on the draw. “Number two, the people I work for. But number one are the customers. They’ve become family.”
Noland, who preaches Sunday mornings at Spur’s Community Bible Church, sees his hours in the store as an extension of his ministry. “People who are coming in having a bad day, you’re able to uplift them. If they need it, I’m going to stop right there and pray with them. It’s all one job.”
Noland will almost double his hours in the store with the new promotion, and he says he’ll certainly miss working alongside Robinson, whom he calls “my best friend.”
The store employs 15 people, and among them Noland will have the able aid of new assistant manager Liz Polly, who moved to Spur from Kentucky last year and stopped in to look for work. Polly said she started as cashier and moved to closer, and has recently been in training for the assistant manager job. On her list of responsibilities are ordering the truck weekly, and opening and closing the store.
As for Noland, “it’s a new life, a new adjustment.”
For Robinson, hardly a day has passed since his retirement that he hasn’t been seen in the store — especially to help with some rearrangements in the checkout area to make room for a Hunt Brothers Pizza oven. But he’s eager to “work on the house, travel some,” he said, “just get in the truck and see where it takes us.”
Customers in Spur have been quick to wish James and Laurie well online and to congratulate the store’s new leadership team. They seem to quite naturally appreciate Robinson’s work ethic, which he’s instilled in his successors: “It’s just been more fun than not.”
