Banks Kerr, the founder of Kerr Drug, dead at 78

Chain Drug Review, Sept 25, 2000

RALEIGH, N.C.-- Banks Kerr, who founded Kerr Drug 50 years ago and served as its chairman and chief executive officer until its sale in 1995, died last month of stomach cancer. He was 78.

In 1950 Kerr was a pharmacist at the Liggett drug chain in Greensboro, N.C. At the behest of a developer, he moved to Raleigh and opened his first store at the newly built Cameron Village, the first shopping center in North Carolina. The store was called Village Pharmacy; Kerr subsequently renamed it Kerr Drug.

He debuted a Goldsboro store in 1953 and one in Durham two years later before expanding the chain throughout eastern North Carolina.

By the time Kerr sold the chain five years ago to J.C. Penney Co. subsidiary Thrift Drug for an estimated $72 million in stock, it had 97 stores with sales of $185 million. The Kerr Drug name was later revived for a Durham-based chain headed by former Thrift executive Tony Civello.