The Ledger

By Becky Holland

COCHRAN — The pharmacy was already closed for the day.

Rob Dykes had worked another long day and was sitting inside Dykes Pharmacy talking about his life, his business and the community he has served for decades when someone knocked on the door.

Dykes got up.

He let the customer inside.

And he helped her.

There was no fanfare and no indication from Dykes that he thought he had done anything unusual. It was simply another person who needed something, and helping people is what he does.

That brief interruption may have said more about Dykes than any answer he gave during the interview.

At 51, Dykes has owned Dykes Pharmacy for 10 years, but his connection to pharmacy began long before his name was on the business.

He is the kind of small-town pharmacist who gives customers his personal cell phone number and will meet someone after hours when an emergency prescription cannot wait until morning.

Ask him why, and his answer goes back to home.

His parents, Al and Linda Dykes, raised him right, he said. And customer service matters.

“Customer service is our mantra,” Dykes said. “Treat everyone with kindness and respect.”

That philosophy has shaped a career built around taking care of people.

Dykes describes himself as energetic and a natural multitasker. His workdays can stretch 12 hours, and he seems most comfortable when there is something that needs doing.

Pharmacy, however, was not his first career plan.

As a young man, Dykes thought he might become a mortician. His father worked at a funeral home, and Dykes would go on calls with him whenever he could.

But while completing his undergraduate studies at Middle Georgia College, another possibility began to take shape.

Dykes realized he enjoyed helping people get well. He liked the idea of working in a pharmacy, helping people understand what they needed and seeing them move beyond the health struggles that brought them through the door.

Once he entered the profession, he loved it.

His pharmacy career began from the ground up.

Dykes worked as a delivery boy, later counted prescriptions and worked while attending pharmacy school.

After pharmacy school, he returned to work for Sam McDaniel at McDaniel Pharmacy, where he spent approximately 14 years.

Another opportunity eventually led him to Porter Pharmacy, where he worked for Tommy Porter for 13 years.

Dykes had known for years that he wanted to own a drug store of his own.

That opportunity came in 2017, when he purchased the pharmacy from Porter.

Today, he says he plans to run it “as long as I can.”

For Dykes, owning an independent pharmacy is about much more than filling prescriptions.

It is about knowing the people who walk through the door and, often, knowing their families.

When he stopped to think about how long he has served the community, Dykes realized he is now caring for the third or even fourth generation of some customer families.

That kind of continuity is one of the things he values most about practicing pharmacy in Cochran.

He loves the town, knows the people and appreciates the familiarity that comes from living and working in a small community.

“There’s nothing like the small-town feel,” he said.

People know Rob, too.

Many have known him for years, long before the name Dykes appeared on the pharmacy. They come to him not only because of his professional knowledge, but because they know how they will be treated.

With professionalism.

With kindness.

And like a neighbor rather than a prescription number.

Dykes said he feels blessed to be able to help people receive the care they need and hopefully see them get better.

That community commitment extends beyond the pharmacy counter. Dykes also serves on the Bleckley Memorial Hospital board.

At the same time, the business he runs is anything but stuck in the past.

In the last two years, Dykes Pharmacy’s customer base has grown to the point that serving everyone requires more hands on deck than before. One of the ways the pharmacy has adapted is through technology.

Dykes Pharmacy uses a Parata Max 2 automated dispensing system. According to Dykes, the machine now handles about 60 percent of the pharmacy’s prescription-filling workload.

The system helps with repetitive prescription-filling tasks, giving Dykes and his staff more time to focus on customers, answer questions, offer advice and handle the parts of pharmacy care that require a personal touch.

It is a fitting combination for Dykes Pharmacy: modern technology helping support the kind of old-school customer service Dykes has built his career around.

The pharmacy also offers immunizations, Medicare drug-plan consultations, health and medical equipment, over-the-counter health products, hospice pharmacy services, citywide delivery and drive-through service. The store also carries gifts and artificial cemetery flowers.

The drive-through was one of the reasons Dykes moved the pharmacy to its current location, a building that once housed a bank.

Its former location carried a different kind of history.

According to Dykes, that building had housed a drug store for approximately 100 years. Today, it houses an embroidery and screen-printing business owned by his wife.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought one of the greatest challenges Dykes Pharmacy has faced.

For approximately a year, customers could not come inside the pharmacy. Prescriptions, however, still had to reach the people who depended on them.

Dykes and his staff shifted the prescription side of the business to curbside service and kept going.

Adaptability is part of independent pharmacy.

So are long hours.

When asked what advice he would give his younger self, Dykes offered something that may be particularly difficult for a man accustomed to taking care of everybody else.

Slow down.

Take care of yourself.

Family is especially important to Dykes. He is married and the father of five children, and away from work — when he manages to find the time — he enjoys hunting, fishing and attending University of Georgia football games.

Dykes is also quick to recognize the people who work alongside him. Pharmacist Ben Crawford has been with Dykes Pharmacy for about five and a half years, and Dykes said he is appreciative of Crawford and the rest of the pharmacy team and the role they play in taking care of customers.

Rob Dykes is still behind the counter.

Still working long days.

Still answering questions.

Still helping families he has known for generations.

Still giving customers his cell number.

And, every so often, still unlocking the pharmacy door after hours because somebody needs him.

“I love what I do,” Dykes said.

For the people who have relied on him through the years, that probably comes as no surprise.

Photos by Becky Holland/The Ledger