Soul of 78: Teresa Sherer, Five Points Pharmacy
Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Ryan McGill
On Halloween 2003, Jeff Butts opened the doors of Five Points Pharmacy and Dollar on Curry Highway in Jasper. Jeff initially started the business and after coming to work for him, Teresa Sherer became a partner. The duo has been providing the residents of Walker County with top-notch pharmacy care and integrity for nearly 18 years.
“Owning a business has been both challenging and rewarding,” says Sherer. “I feel very responsible for my co-workers. I want us all to be successful and have a good career. It’s not just about me, but all of us as a team working together. I’m happy to say that each team member’s heart is geared toward patient care. Jeff and I have great employees here at Five Points.”
Sherer grew up in Louisville, Mississippi, the eldest of three sisters. She got her first taste of working at a local community drugstore the summer after she graduated from Louisville High School. Dan Curran, owner of Dan’s Discount Drugs, needed some help in the store because he was down an employee. Sherer had previously babysat for Dan but had no idea that experience was a seed for her future as a pharmacist.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a minor in chemistry at the Mississippi University for Women (MUW) in Columbus, Sherer moved to Jasper and enrolled in a medical laboratory technician program in Birmingham.
“We had clinicals at both Princeton Hospital and Montclair Hospital,” Sherer recalls. “One day I came back from lunch and there was a table of specimens for the class to examine. I was like, I’m not doing this for the rest of my life.”
She then called the admissions director at Samford University, Bruce Foster, to ask about the prerequisites for the McWhorter School of Pharmacy, going through the entire admission process over the phone before she remembered to call her husband, Pratt. Fortunately, Pratt was supportive of Sherer’s impromptu career change, and she began pharmacy school at Samford in January 1983.
Sherer took upwards of 23 hours of classes to knock out her B.S. in pharmacy and she graduated in December 1984. While working at Walker Regional Medical Center, she felt she needed more education to be a clinical pharmacist, so she enrolled at the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn University and earned her doctorate in 1987 (although she doesn’t want to be called “Dr. Sherer”).
Sherer and her Five Points Pharmacy team are frontline workers in the battle to combat the coronavirus pandemic in Walker County. Her love for her neighbors is the driving force behind the pharmacy’s success. 78