For half a century, alum Jim Olson and family have run Yellow River Pharmacy, a community staple in rural Wisconsin and a training ground for future pharmacists
By Archer Parquette
In Webster, Wisconsin, about a two-hour drive northeast of Minneapolis, you’ll find Yellow River Pharmacy. Its roots run back to 1938, when it was known as the Converse Store, the town general store and pharmacy. Today, nearly a century and a couple name changes later, Yellow River Pharmacy is the picture of small-town community pharmacy. From the pharmacists who know every patient’s name to the high school kids working the counter on the weekends, it’s the small-scale, personal approach that has kept Yellow River going for decades on end.
That’s in no small part due to Jim Olson (BS ‘71), the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy alum who bought Yellow River in 1975, just four years after finishing pharmacy school.
“I love this job. I’ll serve as a pharmacist as long as I possibly can.”
–Jim Olson
“I love this job,” says Olson, now 77 years old. “I’ll serve as a pharmacist as long as I possibly can. My philosophy has always been to roll with the punches and do the best job you can.”
With that philosophy, Olson turned Yellow River into an institution in Webster — one that’s helping inspire pharmacists and physicians of the next generation.
A winding path to Yellow River
When Jim Olson switched his major from business to pre-pharmacy, he wasn’t thinking about the half- century he’d spend running a community pharmacy. He was thinking about a girl he liked.
“I was dating a young gal who was majoring in pre-pharmacy, so I thought maybe I’d get into pharmacy school and have more classes with her,” says Olson, who came to Madison from his hometown of Mayville, Wisconsin. “So I did … and then she dropped out.”
Olson’s romantic hopes might not have panned out, but the move landed him a career that was a natural fit. He stuck with pharmacy, got his degree, and started his career as a pharmacist.
His path to Yellow River was similarly unexpected.
Shortly after Jim graduated and married his wife, Marge, the young couple went to Grantsburg, Wisconsin, to celebrate Thanksgiving and go deer hunting with Marge’s family. Jim shot a deer on opening day, so he didn’t have much else to do during the trip. Looking for some diversion, he headed into town and found a local pharmacy known as Wood River.
Jim hit it off with the pharmacy’s owners Jack Samuleson and Pat Kennedy. When Jim offered to work there that week while his family was out hunting, Jack took him up on the offer.
Two years later, a couple days’ work and a few bucks turned into a job offer.
Samuleson and Kennedy called Olson, who was working as a pharmacist in Fond du Lac at the time, and told him that they were looking for someone to manage a different location they had bought in Webster — Yellow River Pharmacy.
Within a year of managing the small pharmacy, Olson bought it.
“When I first got here, we were using a manual typewriter. Twenty prescriptions a day was a busy day,” Olson says. “Well, I gradually moved on to an electric typewriter, and the store kept getting busier and busier, and the technology kept evolving. My goal was always for the store to keep up, and we did. It’s a very successful store right now, and I think it’s one of the great pharmacies in the state of Wisconsin.”
A home for future pharmacists
Olson shepherded Yellow River through many changes — the emergence of Medicare Part D and the introduction of the internet, for example — but one seemingly small decision has had an unexpected impact. Olson decided that Yellow River needed to stay open on Saturdays.
“We’re the only pharmacy in the area that stays open,” he says. “I think that’s important. We have to give people pharmacy service — it’s more for the community and the area than it is for us as a business.”
That decision led to a twist: A cohort of Wisconsin pharmacists and doctors who got their start working at Yellow River. To stay open that extra day, Olson needed extra staffing, and he found it in local high school students.
His former employees have now gone to become doctors, nurses, therapists, and six have become pharmacists — three of whom followed Olson’s footsteps to UW–Madison.
Chris Witzany (BS ’87) was in eighth grade when his guidance counselor told him that Olson was looking for part-time help at Yellow River. He took the weekend gig and ended up working at the pharmacy through high school.
“Jim was a great mentor,” Witzany says. “Everybody loves him. He has a great sense of humor, he cares about people, and he does things the right way. Being a part of the community is really important to him. Anyone you talk to in town knows who Jim is.”
Many of Witzany’s warmest memories of Yellow River recall that community feeling: Olson proudly showing off the 52-and-a-half-inch, 32-pound muskie he’d caught to every customer; Marge making lemonade when Witzany came over to help Olson with yardwork.
But as a young man, Witzany wasn’t interested in pharmacy as a career. At a time when the internet was just beginning, he was attending UW–Eau Claire for computer programming. After his freshman year, he returned to Webster to work the summer at Yellow River.
“Jim just casually asked how school was going and if I’d had any thoughts about going into pharmacy,” Witzany says. Olson was considering buying Wood River, the pharmacy that had launched his career, and he told Witzany that if he bought the location, he would need someone to run it. Witzany thought the idea of running a pharmacy like his mentor sounded promising. He transferred over to the School of Pharmacy at UW–Madison. After Witzany’s graduation, Olson bought Wood River and gave the new pharmacist a piece of ownership as “sweat equity.”
Witzany’s career switch proved to be a good decision. Six years after he started at Wood River, Witzany bought the pharmacy from Olson, and he continues to run it today.
“I’ve tried to follow Jim’s example — being liked by your customers, hiring good people, and staying involved in the community,” Witzany says.
Another one of those six students who went onto become a pharmacist was Erica Paffel – Olson’s daughter. She started working at Yellow River when she was in seventh grade.
“We’ve had the chance to work with so many great people. I think it’s important to offer these opportunities — I think of it as giving back to the community that’s given me so much.”
–Jim Olson
“She’s been here her whole life,” says Olson. After earning her PharmD degree from the University of Minnesota, Paffel returned to Yellow River and bought it from her father 20 years ago.
The pharmacy still has high school students at the counter every Saturday, one of whom Olson notes is now applying to pharmacy school.
“She’ll be an excellent pharmacist,” Olson says. “We’ve had the chance to work with so many great people. I think it’s important to offer these opportunities — I think of it as giving back to the community that’s given me so much.”
While Paffel now runs the show, her father continues to work at the pharmacy four days a week.
“I absolutely love it here,” Olson says. “This pharmacy has been good for our community, but it’s also been a great place for me and my family.”
