When Jean Almand Kitchin steps out onto the floor of the Westridge Shopping Center branch of Almand's Drug Store, as she does every day, she clasps her hands and makes a beeline for two tiny, young customers waiting with their family at the pharmacy counter.
"Oh, are they twins?" she asks, delighted, and embarks in a lively conversation.
Telegram photo/Alan Campbell |
Jean Almand Kitchin, left, talks with pharmacist Mickey League at Almand's Drug Store in Westridge Shopping Center.
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Telegram photo/Alan Campbell |
Jean Almand Kitchin, right, talks with Michelle Pierce during the taping of 'Around Town,' a television show hosted by Kitchin.
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She observes the store, and greets other customers as they mill through the aisles.
The store, although not nearly as old as the timeless Almand's branch in downtown Rocky Mount, still has a comfortable, homey atmosphere that customers appreciate.
It comes from Kitchin's years of devotion and infectious love for people, community and service.
It seems only fitting that as she heads up the well-loved Rocky Mount drug store and pharmacy, Kitchin herself is a therapeutic remedy of sorts for the community's people and causes. Through her many activities, hobbies and volunteer interests, she lifts others up and champions the human spirit.
A day at the office
When Kitchin found herself in the unlikely position in 1998 of running Almand's drug stores, which have been in her late husband's family since 1942, she was faced with some tough choices. Most of Almand's employees had been with the business for more than 30 years, and they didn't want to see the store go. Neither did the customers.
Without hesitation, Kitchin took the reins and opted to continue to provide an important service to the community.
"Many of our customers grew up going to Almand's downtown," Kitchin says, "and we wanted to continue that service."
Now with three locations in Rocky Mount, the store has continued to work with customers to ensure they get the medications and services they need and to help improve their quality of life.
"As a pharmacy, you've got to reach out and help people," she says.
But Kitchin's dedication goes deeper.
As an education major at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, she learned to assess the situations of everyone around her and understand their needs.
As president and CEO of the nearly all-female-run drug stores, Kitchin has made sure that her employees' family lives continue to stay at the forefront.
"We are very understanding of women having different needs than men professionally," she says. "Women's hearts will always be tied to their families, and they should be."
With such understanding and camaraderie between coworkers, Almand is better able to serve the public. Kitchin's eyes shine when she talks about the beloved business and the way it has enriched her life.
She loves interacting with customers and employees at all the store's locations, but there is something special, she says, about walking into the downtown Almand's, one of the oldest businesses on the strip, and feeling a sense of history.
"It's fun to go in there," she says, "with the high metal ceiling, mosaic tiles on the floor and the neon pharmacy sign."
That appreciation and sense of place have helped Kitchin transfer assistance to customers through easier access to the pharmacies, home delivery of medicine and programs that help those in need have access to medication.
"It's not our goal to fill the most prescriptions in town," Kitchin says. "We want to treat every customer with dignity and give them a thorough understanding of the medications they're taking."
In a sense, Kitchin is raising a family of employees and customers who are bonded together by a love for a business built from the ground up, by a livelihood that helped Kitchin become one of Rocky Mount's native daughters.
A spirit of service
While she lives in Scotland Neck with her husband, L. Hodge Kitchin III, a corn and cotton farmer, Kitchin still nurses a love for Rocky Mount.
"I still consider myself in Rocky Mount because I'm here all my waking hours working," she says. "I still want to be here, and I consider this where I live."
Over the years, she has served the community with a contagious enthusiasm, giving what she has to offer through her expertise in education and desire to make the community a better place.
She served on the Nash-Rocky Mount Board of Education for nine years, including a stint as chairwoman.
During that time, she promoted programs and projects that were committed to helping local students succeed.
"When I first met her, she was very interested in what I was doing in the school setting," says Bonnie Kane, now the coordinator of Rocky Mount High School's International Baccalaureate program, and Kitchin's best friend. "She is interested in every person who crosses her path. She really listens and gets involved with them."
Kitchin has taken that kind of interest over the years and literally broadcast others' stories publicly.
Over the years, she has hosted several television shows locally and statewide that celebrate people's accomplishments and give them a chance to tell their own stories.
From cooking shows to talk shows, Kitchin has aspired to make visible many assets of the community that otherwise might go unnoticed.
She currently hosts "Tar Heel People," a weekly show filmed in Raleigh that highlights North Carolina personalities and promotes local people through a program on WHIG.
"A steady diet of seeing local people doing great things is good for the morale of the community," Kitchin says. "There are so many good people and things in Rocky Mount, and it's so important to keep them visible. It's a positive thing."
Kitchin has a breezy, comfortable-in-my-own-skin aura, which makes anyone immediately comfortable and energized in her presence, even on camera during one of her shows.
"She knows how to put an individual who is completely frightened in front of a camera at ease," says Dolores Journigan, Kitchin's long-time friend and once-guest on her cooking show. "That's a trait that not everyone has."
An unwavering sense of service captures Kitchin every time she sees someone in need, Journigan adds.
"Her middle name could be How Can I Help?" she says.
Kitchin has searched for and found countless ways in which she can help. In addition to serving on the Board of Education, Kitchin has over the years given of herself in volunteerism, serving in leadership roles for the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce, the Salvation Army, the First Presbyterian Church, Newspapers in Education, RBC Centura, N.C. Wesleyan College and many other local organizations. She also is dedicated to serving UNC-Chapel Hill on boards including the UNC Board of Trustees, UNC Board of Visitors, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Board of Visitors and the Carolina Covenant Scholarship policy board.
"When she left the board [of Trustees], we did not want to lose her leadership or her sparkle," says Shirley Ort, associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid at UNC-Chapel Hill.
UNC named Kitchin to the Carolina Covenant advisory board, on which she works for the program that enables eligible students from historically low-income families to attend the university and graduate debt-free if they meet certain expectations.
"In that way," Ort says, "she can help us serve future generations of Carolina students."
A lesson in kindness
What's special about Kitchin is that she savors every experience, every fleeting moment she spends with another person. She remembers those times even many years later, and uses them to enrich her own life. She has used the same philosophy to raise her two sons, Brent, 27, and Mercer, 30, who is now the father of an infant son himself.
"The most important thing in her life that she has accomplished is raising her sons," Kane says. "She's such a dedicated mother."
Kitchin nearly bubbles over when she talks about her children, who both live and work in California, and the times she gets to spend with them.
Her husband has also helped cultivate joy and a sense of humor in her personality, Journigan adds.
In the meantime, she loves those around her with a whole heart, and listens closely to what they have to tell her.
When she served on the Nash-Rocky Mount Board of Education, she and other officials were discussing what character traits needed to be taught in schools.
"Lela Chesson said, 'Everything else will fall into place as long as there's kindness,'" Kitchin says. "I often think about her advocacy for it and more importantly, the reasons why. As I have encountered many of life's changes and hardships, I have seen the importance of kindness and humility in the way a person treats others."
Friends and colleagues see Kitchin as exceptional, while she sees herself as doing her part.
"She has a gift of communication and a gift of intellect," Kane says, "and she puts those things for use for the good of our community."
Sometimes Kitchin just stands back in wonder and reflects on the richness of her life.
She sees the years of service and customer care in Almand's employees.
She smiles back at appreciative grins from clients who are well taken care of.
She watches a student at Wesleyan blossom under her mentorship.
She looks on as her husband fashions furniture from old timber and tobacco barns that stood on well-loved land for generations.
She feels the glow of a thriving community that flourishes with her help.
"This community is very gracious to let me have opportunities to serve," Kitchin says. "To whom much is given, much is expected."
