Stories from the early days of Walmart

“From the beginning, Sam always wanted to beat everybody’s price on everything.”

“I moved here when I was 20 years old. I was born and raised in northwest Arkansas, actually in Bentonville, which is now the headquarters of Walmart. I grew up and went to school with all the Walton boys. The first real job I had, Sam Walton hired me. I was the automotive and sporting goods manager at one of his original stores.”

Did you have any idea at the time that Walmart would become so successful?
“Oh, no, not at all. Now Sam may have had a clue because he was a driven businessman. He was a different kind of guy, always wearing a suit, always walking fast, always 100 percent business, a good guy. And all his kids grew up looking like poor kids, just like the rest of us. He made them work in the stores, and they were good kids.

“I think they have since gone a little bananas. You give them a couple billion dollars, and I think they’ve all gone off the edge a little. John, who was my age, was killed about 10 years ago out in Jackson, Wyoming. He got into flying experimental ultralight planes, and one of them had a catastrophic wing failure and crashed and killed him.”