Rite Aid Announces Winners of Favorite Pharmacy Team Member Contest

Ohio Pharmacy Technician and Michigan Customer Each Win $2,500 Rite Aid Gift Card in Customer Service Sweeps

CAMP HILL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) is proud to announce the two winners of the 2012 Favorite Pharmacy Team Member contest are a pharmacy technician from Ada, Ohio, and a long-time customer of the Birmingham, Mich., store. Both were selected at random from more than 13,000 entries in the annual contest honoring Rite Aid's pharmacy team members for their commitment to customer care and service. Established in 2003, the contest was expanded to all pharmacy team members for the first time in 2012.

“give you a personal touch in an impersonal world.”

To enter, customers submitted mail-in nominations, in-store forms and online ballots during American Pharmacists Month in October. The names of one customer and one pharmacy team member were each drawn to receive $2,500 in Rite Aid gift cards. And every nominated "favorite" pharmacy team member receives an official pin and letter of commendation from Rite Aid Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer John Standley.

"We're proud of the excellent service that our pharmacy teams provide Rite Aid customers each and every day," said Dan Miller, Rite Aid's senior vice president of pharmacy operations. "I'd like to congratulate all of our pharmacy teams across the country on their dedication, which enables Rite Aid to provide services, products, and resources to help our customers lead healthier lives."

Rite Aid's winning Pharmacy Team Member is Cheryl Minix, a pharmacy technician for more than six years at the store in Ada, Ohio. Minix was nominated for being helpful, friendly and asking customers by name how they are doing.

"It was awesome" to see Minix recognized as the first-ever pharmacy technician to receive the award, said pharmacy manager Mike Elliott. "Cheryl is an invaluable member of our team and helps us all look good – the way she always sends customers away on a positive note or goes out of her way to help a customer find a product on the shelf."

Rite Aid's winning customer, meanwhile, is Holly Smith, a customer of the Birmingham Rite Aid for "at least seven years." Smith makes a point to drive half an hour to see her favorite pharmacy team member, pharmacy manager Bob Hammer.

Although long appreciative of Hammer's personal care, she nominated the Rite Aid veteran of 34 years not long after he talked her through some complicated insurance changes. She's also run into Hammer at community events including a local Step Out fundraiser held annually by the American Diabetes Association. She was thrilled to be selected for the $2,500 prize – and not just because of the money it'll save her on prescriptions.

"I'm always teaching my kids that it's the small acts of kindness that make a difference in life," she said of her middle school students at the Bloomfield Hills area school where she teaches. And she can now point to a real-life example that gave her a valuable prize and also the chance to recognize her long-time pharmacist for all he does to "give you a personal touch in an impersonal world."

Rite Aid Corporation is one of the nation’s leading drugstore chains with more than 4,600 stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia and fiscal 2012 annual revenues of $26.1 billion. Information about Rite Aid, including corporate background and press releases, is available through the company’s website at www.riteaid.com.