b'C o m m u n i t yic, those being Sprouts and Natural Grocers, both located on the east side of SPID in Corpus Christi. It has been rumored that HEB boss Charles Butt, who owns a large vacation home in Port A, has a standing gentlemens agreement with IGA Family Center owner, Mike Hall, to never build a store on the islands. Of course, he doesnt have to, as on any given day you run into your Port A friends at the Flour Bluff HEB-Plus, or the much smaller store in AP. They will go OTB (over-the-bridge) or sit in the ferry line to shop at HEB for the same reasons that us other 600,000 Coastal Benders doalong with millions upon millions of our fellow Texans and Mexicans south of the border.Before you, dear reader, assume that you are in pre-flight for a ride on the HEB Lovefest Express, we should be very clear that this piece is in no way spon-sored, influenced, approved, reviewed or in any manner authorized by HEB Grocery Company, its affiliates, its lawyers, or its partners. The topic is inter-esting to so many of us because HEB plays an out-sized role in our daily lives, compared to other grocery stores in other markets of our size. What makes the company a real story is its astounding, rather recent, big-time success that is being recognized on a national scale, althoughand many are shocked to learnthey operate only in the state of Texas and in Northern Mexico.But just in case you harbor any lingering doubt about our 100% complete, journalistic independence from HEB, we will make this point: the B in HEB stands for Butt, like your butt. Howard E. Butt Grocery Company: H-E-B. Their PR department would never approve this paragraph.About 15 years ago, when the HEB-Plus store was under construction in Flour Bluff, several on our vast staff of investigative journalists, at the time, ap-proached the company to do a story on the stores construction and what eager shoppers could expect in their new, super HEB. The silence from the mother-ship, even after encouragement from the local manager, was so profound that ones ears would ring. HEBs public relations folks, though Texas-friendly, had no interest in publicizing the inner workings of the new store or anything about how they operate as a business. This many years later, we can appreci-ate HEBs policy of silence in the face of unprecedented, looming competition in the fastest-growing state in the country. We didnt like it at the time, but any smart businessperson would-too have kept their cards close to their chest while in the crosshairs of much bigger, billion-dollar competitors gathering at the gate. And it definitely worked. Opposite: An original Charles and Florence Butt moved to Kerrville from Memphisat the turnHEB-Plus location in San of the 20th Century, hoping that the drier, warmer climate would offer reliefAntonio with expansive for Mr. Butts tuberculosis. Having to earn a living for the family, Florencegarden section, built converted the ground floor of their two-story house into a grocery store withduring the first wave an investment of $60 (about $2,300 today), which opened on November 26,of HEB superstore 1905, under the name C.C. Butt Grocery Store. The familys young sons firstdevelopment.Top: delivered groceries in a baby carriage, which moved up to a red wagon, andThe original C.C. Butt then eventually to a horse-drawn carriage. All three brothers, Eugene, CharlesGrocery Store, located Jr., and Howard, worked in the store growing up, with Howard showing theon the ground floor most initiative to be involved in the business, an effort that was interruptedof the family home in by his service in the U.S. Navy during World War I. When he returned, he gotKerrville.Above: A new, back to work, and before long, the store moved out of the house and into the2-story urban Market center of town, and was expanded to include a delicatessen and butchery. HEB on W. Alabama St. Piggly Wiggly was the countrys first self-service grocery chain, founded inin the Montrose section 1917 by Clarence Saunders in Memphis, Tennessee, where Howard E. Butt wasof Houston.Right: HEB born in 1895. In 1926, after Saunders got himself into trouble with the NewGrocery was founded York Stock Exchange, his three stores in Texas were sold to Howard Butt,by Florence Butt, not along with franchising rights. The first of the new stores was in Del Rio, fol- her husband Charles, a lowed by Brady and Gonzales and then San Benito and Harlingen, but be- career pharmacist who fore these successes, Howard failed at three new stores of his own in the Hillsuffered from chronic Country. It was the Piggly Wiggly brand and self-service business model thattuberculosis.TheCoastalBend.com THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE31'