Serving Through Change, Crisis, and Community Need

Phil Icard, BSPharm ’75, has diligently served the community of Taylorsville for the last 50 years at Peoples Drug Store

Story by Sarah Clark | Photos provided by Phil Icard | Published June 17, 2025

Phil Icard, BSPharm ’75, has continued the legacy of Rowe Campbell, diligently serving the community of Taylorsville for the last 50 years at Peoples Drug Store. 

Phil’s love of chemistry and interest in serving patients meant that a career in pharmacy just made sense. As a student at the UNC School of Pharmacy and a member of Phi Delta Chi, Phil fostered his own sense of community at the large university and pursued his rigorous studies. Although hospital pharmacy intrigued Phil, he felt that community pharmacy was the best fit.  

Having lived in Taylorsville himself, Peoples Drug store was Phil’s own community pharmacy, so continuing to serve the community he grew up in is particularly meaningful to him. “It has been the thrill of a lifetime,” he explains. “I wish I had 50 more years to do it … because the last ten years have been some of the most rewarding years of my profession.” However, that is not to say it comes without its challenges.  

About 20 years ago, the community hospital closed, which left Peoples Drug Store as one of the very few health care providers within a 25-mile radius of many homes. When COVID hit, Phil and his team faced a unique challenge of providing care to people in rural North Carolina during unprecedented times. However, they did not let fear of uncertainty bog them down. Alongside a team of retired doctors, nurses, and teachers, Phil and his pharmacists lead an effort to administer over 20,000 vaccines to this rural community. They also helped lessen the load of the NC Health Departments by administering over 10,000 COVID tests throughout the duration of the pandemic, working seven days a week.  “There wasn’t a black and white [procedure] to go through … you were learning as you went. We were getting new information from the CDC at different times and trying to apply that,” Phil explains. “We took care of people the best we could.” 

In addition to the mass immunization effort, Peoples Drug Store expanded their delivery service, kept the drive-through open, and had set pick-up stations outside so that their patients could still access their medications.  

Phil reflects on this time as one of the most fulfilling of his career, “I finally got to use all of my skills at one time, and it was so rewarding. When it was all over with, I said ‘It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked, and the most rewarding I’ve ever worked,’” he shares. “And then, when it was all over with, I was thinking: ‘Gee, what are we gonna do now?’”

Phil Icard, second from the left, celebrates Peoples Drug Store’s 100th Anniversary

Phil’s first endeavor into community pharmacy, however, was not as exciting as it is now. It was over 50 years ago, during his summer internship at Peoples Drug Store, that Phil first began his career in community pharmacy. During this internship the store was being remodeled. Because of this, Phil didn’t actually do much pharmacy work at all, but rather helped move boxes as the store underwent construction. Nevertheless, this was just the beginning of Phil’s long tenure at Peoples Drug Store. 

Opened in 1918 by Rowe Campbell Sr., Peoples Drug Store has been serving the community of Taylorsville for over 100 years. Phil was determined to continue their legacy after Rowe Campbell Jr., BSPharm ’53, retired in 1990. “I just wanted to work for the Campbell family because their values, and what I thought they stood for, are what I wanted to be a part of,” says Phil.  

Still driven to provide his patients with the best care possible, Phil is always looking for gaps in health care services to fill. “When you live in a small community, there’s not a lot of resources, but there’s a lot of opportunities for pharmacists to fill in the blanks,” he says. Whether that’s applying the skills he learned during a First Aid class at the School to help elderly patients bandage skin tears, or educating others about their medical equipment, Phil and his team are there to help with it all.