Firestone celebrates 50 years with S&S

Tommy Firestone, store manager at S&S Supermarket in the Hilltop Shopping Plaza in Clovis, is celebrating 50 years with the store this month.

"I started to work for Piggly Wiggly, Aug. 8, 1974. I started as a 'sacker,' a bag boy," Firestone said Monday.

The Piggly Wiggly was where S&S Supermarket is now.

About two years into his job as a sacker, Firestone was reassigned to stocking merchandise.

"That was my senior year of high school. I did that until 1980. I got married that year. Then Store Manager Glen Spell came to me and asked me would I be interested in being assistant manager," Firestone said.

Firestone was assistant manager when, in 1982, the Piggly Wiggly store was about to be closed in a bankruptcy.

"Then Pete Stansell, who had Stansell's Grocery and Murphy's Grocery Store, Glen Spell, the Piggly Wiggly manager, and butcher Carroll Hatter bought the store and it became S&S, for 'Stansell & Spell,'" Firestone said.

Firestone said the supermarket was bought by Kyle Brewer in 2004.

"I stayed with him as manager to this day," Firestone said.

What changes in the supermarket business has Firestone seen over the years?

"The first major change was we used to price things with a 'Garvey stamper.' It used ink. Then we switched to label guns," Firestone said.

Firestone said the stampers were used until about 1984-85 "and then we had scanners."

"Scanners were quite a relief, the biggest change I'd ever seen. It made things easier," Firestone said.

Firestone remembered how the cash registers went from punching in numbers to scanning.

Firestone added the next big change was the self checkout.

"I went to college, I got out of college and I thought, 'I'm not going to change jobs.' I loved what I was doing. And to this day I love what I'm doing," Firestone said.

Firestone's family includes his wife Pam, their daughter Jaymi and son Jef.