SANDPOINT — After 41 years of being a Sandpoint Super Drug pharmacist, Mark Coburn is retiring Dec. 27 — sort of.

"The truth is, I am on the schedule for next month," Coburn said, explaining that, for now, he still plans to work one weekend a month.

Coburn was hired by Sandpoint Super Drug owner John Porter in 1975 when the store was still in its early years and located in downtown Sandpoint, 313 N. First Ave.

"It's unbelievable," Porter said about Coburn's long-term employment in the company. "It's 41-plus years. We have a lot of long-term employees, though, but nothing to that extent."

Coburn said he was in his senior year at Washington State University when he traveled during school vacations to look for work. 

Working in Idaho, he said, had not occurred to him at the time, but in the spring of '75, he made a loop that took him up through Newport and Sandpoint. That was the first time he met Porter, who had just hired another pharmacist. They spoke for about two hours, and not much time passed before Porter contacted Coburn. The new pharmacist was not working out.

"I had just about accepted a job in Moses Lake at that time, but I came up here instead," Coburn said.  

After growing up in a small town, Coburn said he wanted to stay in a small town.

"Sandpoint is actually bigger than the town I grew up in, so this is like being in the city to me," he said.

So he settled in Sandpoint and raised his family. His two sons have since graduated from Sandpoint High School, gone to college and moved on to careers of their own.

Although Porter opened the store on Fifth Avenue in 1981, Coburn continued to manage the smaller store until Porter opened a location in the Bonner Mall in 1983, closing the downtown location. Coburn said Bonner Mall Drug and Hardware was the first store to open in the mall in the location where Staples is now. Coburn managed that store until it closed around 1990. Porter said when stores like Kmart began moving into the area, he decided to consolidate into the single location on Fifth Avenue, and has been there ever since.

Coburn said the best thing about being a pharmacist over the past 41 years is the people.

"It's the personal contact with the patients," he said. "Over months and years you develop a pretty good relationship with the patients ... these people are loyal customers and loyal patients — we try to take good care of them and they keep coming back."