Tommy Jackson was born and raised in Magnolia and graduated from Magnolia High School in 1973. That was the year the Magnolia Panthers won the state football title. Tommy had been a starter on the team prior to that year, but something happened the year before that changed everything for him. He suffered a serious knee injury that ended his football career; he was unable to play in 1973.
“I was still associated with the football program in a way,” Jackson said, “because I worked as a spotter for the team.”
A spotter is a person who works in the broadcast booth with the play-by-play announcer, and his job is to watch the game and identify the key players and relay that information to the broadcaster in real time. Tommy did that job, but he would also go down to the locker room at halftime and report to the coaches on anything he saw from his better view in the booth that might help the team in the second half. Based on his play during his junior year, Coach Rip Powell at Southern State College told Tommy, “Stay well, and play for me.” The knee injury prevented him from pursuing that option.
After graduating from high school, Jackson was able to find immediate employment in the oil field. A number of his relatives and friends were already working there in one form or another, so it seemed the natural thing to do. After a long, hot summer of hard work, he made a career decision that would affect the rest of his life and set him on his road to personal success.
“Working in the oil field that summer was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. One summer of that was all I needed, and it gave me quite the incentive to study and work hard to do something different with my life,” he laughed. “What I chose to do was become a pharmacist.”
Jackson entered Southern State College (SSC), now Southern Arkansas University, in the fall of 1973 in the pre-pharmacy program. After two years at SSC, Tommy was accepted into the pharmacy program at Northeast Louisiana University (NLU) in Monroe. When he arrived in the fall of 1975, he was among 10 students from the Magnolia area in the pharmacy school there, so he felt quite at home.
After three years in pharmacy school, Jackson graduated and came back to Magnolia for his first job working at the pharmacy in the Gibson’s Discount Center, which was a large, regional chain of stores headquartered in Texas. He stayed on staff there for a year before going to work for Medic-Aid Pharmacy, which would later become AllCare Pharmacy.
After working about a year and a half at Medic-Aid, Jackson got a call from Wal-Mart in February of 1981 that would change his life and his career trajectory. The call came from the district manager of Wal-Mart pharmacies, who offered Jackson a job. At the time, the new pharmacy in the Magnolia store at W. Main and Vine Street was the 33rd in the company, which meant Jackson got in on the ground floor.
“Wal-Mart was taking baby steps at that time as they entered the pharmacy business,” he recalled.
Jackson served as the pharmacy manager at the Magnolia Wal-Mart for six and a half years before he was offered the job of district manager. The district included 26 stores, with three in Texas, three in Oklahoma, and 20 in Arkansas. There was quite a bit of travel associated with his job and, after 17 years, he made a request to go back into the Magnolia store as a regular pharmacist.
“I had a really good history with the company,” Jackson explained, “but I would have had to move to corporate headquarters in Bentonville to get a job as a regional manager that would allow me to get off the road. And I wanted to stay in the Magnolia area. I really appreciated the offer they made me, but I wanted to slow things down a bit as well.
When I first got back into the store, I still had to travel some because there weren’t three full-time positions available. But that problem took care of itself when the store expanded the hours of operation and therefore needed additional help. I’ve come full circle at Wal-Mart. I started in the local store as a regular pharmacist, and now I’m back to doing the same thing again.”
After 39 years in the pharmacy business, and 36 of those with the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Division, Jackson loves what he does for a living. “But my real passion in life is hunting and my dogs,” he said. Over the years, he recalled owning a number of dogs, mostly Labrador Retrievers, but the two dogs he has right now are rescue dogs. “I felt like that was the right thing to do at this time. The dogs I have now aren’t full breed but are a Lab mix. They’re great dogs and always let me know if anyone’s around. My wife’s friends say I post more pictures of my dogs than I do of her,” he laughed.
Jackson is married to the former Kathy Orren of Village. “I can’t say enough good things about my wife, Kathy. She lets me hunt five months out of the year, lets my dogs in her clean house, cooks meals for them, etc. She knows I love dogs and just takes care of us all. I couldn’t ask for a better wife, or a harder worker.”
With all the good things that have happened in his life, Jackson has also had more than his share of tragedy. He had three children, two sons and a daughter, but he’s lost both of his sons. His son Dustin passed away in 2010, and his son Brady was lost in 2014. Brady served two tours in Afghanistan, where he received a brain injury that resulted in seizures that eventually took his life.
“To lose one child would be bad enough, but to lose two children is almost unbearable,” he said.
“My strong church family and my friends rallied around me both times, and I couldn’t have made it without them. Special friends lifted me up in prayer and gathered together to support me. I can’t say it’s been easy in any way, but things do get better with the passage of time. Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are still the most difficult,” Jackson stated. Six grandchildren have helped to fill the void, along with his daughter Ashley, who is a math teacher with the Lafayette County School District.
Right now, Jackson is still going strong and doesn’t have any definite retirement plans. “I love what I do, and even after 39 years in the business and 36 years at Wal-Mart, I’m still happy with my job,” he said. “I have great co-workers who’ve been with the company a long time, too, and that makes it so much easier.”