Saving a bookstore

It was a sad day in the winter of 2012 when Mary Gay Shipley, the nationally known proprietress of That Bookstore in Blytheville, announced that one of the finest independent bookstores in the country was for sale.

She began her message on the store's website by quoting from Ecclesiastes: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

I knew then what was coming. She wrote: "It is now time for change. It has been a privilege to serve you all these years. I am proud of the role That Bookstore in Blytheville has played in the life of our community. It is my sincere hope that someone or some group will come forward and continue TBIB in some fashion. I am not going anywhere and would be happy to help a new owner transform TBIB into their own vision. I believe the next few years will be exciting for independent booksellers who embrace the multiple reading formats and who are located in areas with a strong buy-local economy. It would be a fun challenge, if only I were a decade younger. And so I am ready to turn loose of That Bookstore in Blytheville and spend more time with my family. Thank you for the wonderful times."

A few days earlier, I had written a blog post about the death of McCormick Book Inn in Greenville, Miss., which closed its doors in November 2011 after 46 years in business. It also was among the best bookstores in the South. I understood the decision owners Hugh and Mary Dayle McCormick had made. Running a small business in a struggling Delta town is no easy proposition. I passed the building that housed McCormick's on South Main Street in Greenville a few weeks ago. It still sits empty. Greenville and Blytheville, proud Delta towns, both have had their struggles.

"The economy in Blytheville has been marginal during most of our bookselling years," Shipley wrote for Publishers Weekly in 2009. "We have always operated in a community with both a low literacy rate and a low median income. When our local U.S. Air Force base closed in 1992, one-fourth of the population (and a greater percentage of our readers) left."

I wrote on my blog in February 2012: "Will a buyer be found in the next several months? I wish I were more optimistic. We may lose another Delta treasure." I quoted Jerry Seinfeld, who once said that a bookstore is "one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." I sulked about what I figured was the imminent loss of yet another favorite Delta haunt.

Shipley, who became a respected board member of the American Booksellers Association, had been a teacher. She opened a paperback exchange store affiliated with a Memphis group known as The Book Rack. Shipley found space in a former jewelry store in downtown Blytheville in 1976, though the store didn't become known as That Bookstore in Blytheville until 1994. She said she would sell the store for just $35,000. "I really don't want someone to take it over with such a heavy debt load that they can't enjoy it," Shipley said in 2012. "It is my real hope to find someone who will make it theirs."

I was pleasantly surprised in November 2012 when it was announced that a 22-year-old writer named Grant Hill was moving to Blytheville from Mountain Home to buy the store. Hill took over That Bookstore in January 2013. I was in the store two months later and found that the inventory had diminished greatly. On Good Friday, I was back in Blytheville, half expecting the store to have closed in the year since. Instead, a man behind the counter offered a friendly greeting. It was Chris Crawley, who, along with attorney Yolanda Harrison, bought the store from Hill at the first of the year. "Come on in and make yourself at home," he called out. "We have some fresh coffee on, and there are cookies." It was almost as if Shipley were back in charge.

"I had been talking to my folks and doing the math--and checking my blood pressure--and came to the conclusion that I needed to look for a way to, in a sense, minimize any damage to the bookstore and my own health," Hill told Blytheville's Courier News in December. "So I hadn't really even told anybody that I wanted to sell the business, and Chris came in ... and said, 'I'd like to talk to you about us possibly working out a deal to buy the bookstore.'"

Mississippi County native Crawley worked as a talent and literary manager in the Los Angeles area before moving back to Blytheville. He bluntly told me that he thought he was coming home to die. "I had suffered three strokes because of toxic black mold infestation in my lungs and digestive tract," Crawley said. "It's true when they say everything grows well in sunny California. For a time, I could not see, speak or walk. I thought I was done for. I came back to Blytheville to die, but God had other plans for me. He resurrected me, restored me and gave me new life. In return, I want to give new life to That Bookstore and in doing so give new life to Blytheville."

Crawley said he views the bookstore as "an opportunity to help rebuild the Blytheville community. I see the bookstore as a mechanism to uplift the town's spirit. I see it as a way to build literary awareness. I see it as a vehicle to increase literacy for our kids and adults. I see it as a way to make a difference. I see the bookstore as a way to fulfill my mission to make a difference in my hometown.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 05/14/2014

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