Sam

Sam Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee Walton near Kin gfisher, on , 1918. There, he lived with his parents on their farm until 1923. Sam's father decided farming did not generate enou gh income on which to raise a family, so he decided to go back to a previ ous profession of a mortgage man. So he and his family (now with another son, James, born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma to . There they mov ed from one small town to another for several years. While attending 8th grade in Shelbina, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state's his tory. In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the .

Walton excelled physically in high school, playing basketball and football as starting quarterback for Columbia's in 1935, when th ey won the state title. While at Hickman, he also served as vice president of the student body his junior year and as president his senior year. He pe rformed well enough academically to become an honors student.

Growing up during the , Walton had numerous chores to hel p make financial ends meet for his family. He milked the family cow, bott led the surplus and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver n ewspapers on a paper route. Upon graduating, he was voted "Most Versatile Boy."

Upon graduating, Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. He attended the - Columbia and majored in economics and was an ROTC officer. During this tim e, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for me als. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the estimable Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well -known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men. Upon graduati ng, he was voted "permanent president" of the class. He was also a member of the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi.

Walton joined JCPenney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa three d ays after graduating from college. This position earned him $75 a month. H e resigned in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II. In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. There he met his future wife, Helen Robson, i n April 1942.

Robson was the valedictorian of her high school class and a graduate of t he University of Oklahoma at Norman with a degree in business. She was th e daughter of L.S. Robson, a prosperous banker and rancher. She and Sam w ere married February 14, 1943.

Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the US Army Intelligence Corp s, supervising security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. In thi s position he served in the continental . He eventually reached the rank of captain.

The first stores In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton decided he wanted to own a depa rtment store but would settle for a variety store. With some help from his father-in-law with a loan of $20,000, plus $5000 he had saved from his time in the Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Ark ansas. The store was a franchise of the Butler Brothers chain.

It was here that Walton pioneered many concepts that would prove to be cruc ial to his success. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods at low prices. His store also stayed open later than most other stores, especially during the Easter season. He also pionee red the practice of discount merchandizing by buying wholesale goods from t he lowest priced supplier. This allowed him to pass on savings to his custo mers, which drove up his sales volume. Higher volumes allowed him to negoti ate even lower purchase prices with the wholesaler on subsequent purchases. Walton's store led in sales and profits in the Butler Brothers' six-state region. One factor that made this store successful was its central location , making it accessible to a wide range of customers. In an attempt to limit the expansion of his main competitor, the Sterling Store, Walton leased a nearby Kroger store and opened it in 1950 as the "Eagle" department store, but it didn't fare as well.

Due to the variety store's enormous success, the landlord, P. K. Holmes, ref used to renew the lease when it expired, desiring to pass the store onto his son. The lack of a renewal option, together with the outrageous rent of 5% of sales, were early business lessons to Walton. Despite the inherent unfair ness of forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store's inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price." .

Sam Walton's original Walton's Five and Dime, now the Wal-Mart Visitor's C enter, Bentonville, .Before moving out in 1951, Walton arranged fo r another location for a new store. Unable to find a new location in Newpo rt, Walton located a variety store in Bentonville, Arkansas which he would open as another Ben Franklin franchise, but called "Walton's Five and Dim e." In Bentonville, the Waltons became involved in numerous civic activiti es. Walton served as president of the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Comme rce. He was also elected to the city council, served on the hospital board , and launched a Little League baseball program in the city in 1954.

Walton went on to found another variety store in Fayetteville, Arkansas, ab out 20 miles south of Bentonville in 1952. It would share the same name as the store in Bentonville but was not a Ben Franklin franchise. It went on t o become as successful as the original Five and Dime. Of this time, Walton said, "I did something I would do for the rest of my run in the retail busi ness without any shame or embarrassment whatsoever: nose around other peopl e's stores searching for good talent."

His search turned up Willard Walker, a manager of a TG&Y variety store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Walker, Walton did something that is commonplace tod ay but was quite unusual during that time period--he offered Walker a perc entage of the store's profit, a practice now known as profit sharing. Walt on proceeded to visit the store once a week to handle any problems and rev iewed the store's profit and loss statement once a month.

About this time, Walton introduced the concept of check-out counters at one l ocation in the store. Registers throughout the store were moved to one locati on near the exits. Customers could be rung up for all their purchases and pay for them at one time, instead of paying for several things at several locati ons. Walton also insisted that his stores be clean, well-lit, and on sharing profits with employees, increasing their loyalty.

Over time, Walton went on to open more Ben Franklin stores with the help of his brother, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. In 1954, he opened a store Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest man in the United States from 1985 to 1988, ceding the top spot to in 1989 when the editors began to credit Walton's fortune jointly to him and his four children. (Bill Ga tes first headed the list in 1992, the year Walton died). Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated also runs Sam's Club warehouse stores. Wal-Mart stores operat e in , , , , South Korea, , Germany, Puert o Rico, and in the (having taken over ).

He left his ownership in Wal-Mart to his wife and their children: S. Robso n "Rob" Walton, John T. Walton, , and . Rob Walton s ucceeded his father as the Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart, and John was a director until his death in a 2005 plane crash. The others are not dire ctly involved in the company (except through their voting power as shareho lders). The held 5 spots in the top 10 richest people in the United States until 2005. Two daughters of Sam's brother , Ann Kroenke and Nancy Laurie, hold smaller shares in the company and are also billionaires in their own right. If alive today, Sam Walton would be the w orld's wealthiest person, twice as rich as . Today, some people say about him: "He was a good guy, except if he was running you out of bus iness."

Walton supported various charitable causes, including those of his church , the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Sam and Helen R. Walton Award was cr eated in 1991 when the Waltons made a gift of six million dollars which i ncluded an endowment in the amount of three million dollars to provides a nnual awards to new church developments that are working in creative ways to share the Christian faith in local communities.