The customer-oriented philosophy of Fruth Pharmacy is coming closer to home when the company’s 26th store opens in Ironton in late summer.

The groundbreaking for the store will be 11 a.m. Friday at the intersection of U.S. 52 and State Route 141 across from the new St. Mary’s Medical Campus. That facility is set to open in July.

“We will have a full-line pharmacy with a large gift department,” said Lynne Fruth, president and chairman of the board of the company. “There will be over-the-counter medications, health and beauty products, a reasonable line of groceries, pretty much a standard full-line drugstore.”

The company began in 1952 when the late Jack Fruth, Lynne’s father, opened the first Fruth Pharmacy in Point Pleasant, W.Va. Since then the company has opened pharmacies across the Tri-State with its eighth store in Proctorville, a fixture of that village for the past 25 years.

“We feel the thing that sets us apart is excellent customer service, community involvement and having long-tenured employees who develop relationships with the customers,” Fruth said. “If a person comes in looking for a product and can’t find it, if we can find it, we will bring it in. … a lot of times we can have it in the next day.”

As part of its community philosophy are the 25 scholarships the company gives out each year. That is a commitment the company plans to bring to Ironton, Fruth said.

“I will be meeting with Bill Willan, (dean of Ohio University Southern), to try to start a scholarship at Ohio University for one of the local kids,” she said. “Those are the kinds of things we like to do when we go into a community.”

Fruth also expects to team up with the local CAO to provide reduced price prescriptions for patients without insurance.

Instrumental in opening the new store was the Lawrence Economic Development Corp and the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce.

“It has been one of the nicest business deals,” she said. “Everybody in Lawrence County is motivated for improving things and providing jobs. That has been a very refreshing experience for the common good.”

The target date for opening is late August to Sept 1. Initially the pharmacy will open with 20 employees with the goal of increasing that to a total of 25 in the first two years.