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Retired pharmacist helps mentor at UOP
Retired pharmacist
Longtime Manteca Pharmacist Ed Larimer practiced at Manteca Drug and retired from Target Pharmacy. - photo by GLEN KAHL

 Longtime Manteca pharmacist Ed Larimer is helping student pharmacists at the University of the Pacific in Stockton much the same as the assistance he received from early Manteca druggists Lester Wilson and Ted Poulos.  
Larimer grew up in Manteca and remembers when the population was 3,000 residents. He mowed lawns on both sides of the 100 block of Lincoln Avenue where he took care of both front and rear lawns complete with edging them for only $1.
“I can remember when the open SSJID irrigation ditches ran through town until they were covered,” Larimer said. “ We would go through the ditches – play in the pipes and play cowboys and Indians and run into the ‘hobos’ as they were called back then.”
When in high school he was hired by Les Wilson, then the owner of the Manteca Drug Store in the 100 block of West Yosemite Avenue, to work as a stock boy. Wilson later encouraged Larimer  to pursue a pharmacy  career
Larimer was hired on at Manteca drug as a pharmacist after his graduation from the University of Pacific School of Pharmacy. He was taken in as a partner in the business several years later in 1969 when Ted Poulos became the primary partner.  He continued on until 1994 filling the prescriptions for the Manteca community.  After the closure of Manteca Drug, Larimer was hired by the Target Store pharmacy on East Yosemite Avenue. He retired from Target several years ago.
Now he manages the Alpha Psi chapter of the national Phi Delta Chi fraternity house at UOP that seven of the 65 pharmacy students call home while studying at the university, He’s in constant contact with the student pharmacists.
In his retirement he has become quite active in the Alpha Psi Education, Scholarship & Leadership Foundation – with a theme of “Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders.”
Larimer explained that the foundation embodies the belief that investing in the development of student pharmacists and new professionals is an investment in improving the profession of pharmacy and health of new communities.
It was some 13 years ago that Alpha Psi celebrated its 50th anniversary and energized a small group of alumni to invest their energies and resources in developing an organization that would allow the alumni and others to give back to the future of pharmacy and society through the support of pharmacy students.
The group wanted to build something that was important and lasting, Larimer recalled, so the Alpha Psi Education, Scholarship & Leadership foundation was born in 2008.
He noted that leadership, development and scholarship are rewarded and supported through eight scholarships each year awarded to outstanding pharmacy students at UOP.
The foundation has nearly reached its $1 million goal toward its fundraising program.  When the goal is reached, the entire Scholarship and Leadership development program of the Foundation will be supported with endowment funds, thus assuring the programs will continue into perpetuity.
The Foundation prides itself with an annual alumni donor list of nearly 1,000.
Larimer was honored with his induction into the Manteca Hall of Fame in 2005.
Ed and his wife Peggy first met at the Islander Restaurant in its Latitude 20 Bar that he remembers as “just a lucky Happenstance.”    

To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.