Congratulations to the Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, N.C., which is marking its 65th anniversary. It will celebrate with a party on Thursday, December 6, starting at 6 p.m. at the store with a champagne toast. At 6:30, the party moves to 305 Trackside, a nearby event center, where drinks and light hors d'oeuvres will be provided.
Since its opening in 1953, the Country Bookshop has remained a fixture in downtown Southern Pines despite changing hands several times and moving twice. Today it is owned by the Pilot, a newspaper in Southern Pines, and is run day-to-day by Kimberly Daniels Taws, the incoming president of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.
The store's original founders, Lockie Parker and Margaret Olmstead Rounds, eventually sold the store to Peg Benedict and her husband, Cad, with Katharine Boyd as silent partner. Shortly after buying the store, the Benedicts moved Country Bookshop to a new space, roughly doubling it in size. The Benedicts retired two years later and sold the business to James and Joan Scott.
Under the Scotts' ownership, the store moved to its present location. Joan Scott helped create the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities. In 2002, the Moore County Literacy Council created the Joan Scott Literacy Award in her honor and the Southern Pines mayor made April 28, 2002, Joan Scott Day.
After Scott died in 2005, longtime customer Bobbie Bickett took over, and introduced, among other things, computer management systems and online ordering. But by 2010, the store was at risk of closure and David Woronoff, the Pilot's publisher, had the newspaper company buy the store.
With Taws at the helm, Country Bookshop now hosts more than 100 events each year and recently began offering professional publishing services for independent authors.
"The only reason this store has been here for 65 years is because our customers choose to shop here," Taws told the Pilot. "I am grateful for everyone who has ever stepped inside."