Larry Sharpe, owner of Blythewood Oil, right, and Sheri Mehaffey, Chief Operating Officer of the company, show off the award they received for the company being named the 2013 Retailer of the year for an unprecedented second time in three years.
The S.C. Association of Convenience Stores has, for the second time in three years, named Blythewood Oil Company the top retailer in the state.
Larry Sharpe, owner of the company, and Sheri Mehaffey, the company’s Chief Operations Officer, received the award last week at the Association’s 2013 convention in Hilton Head. Both Sharpe and Mehaffey are lifelong Blythewood community residents. Sharpe, who owns eight Sharpe Shoppe convenience stores – six in Blythewood, one at Lee and Longtown roads and one on Highway 34 at I-77 – started the business in 1976.
The company was honored for its leadership and involvement in the convenience store industry. But Sharpe credits Mahaffey with the success of his stores.
“She’s done it all,” Sharpe said, praising Mahaffey for her initiative in every area of the stores’ operations over the last eight years. He credits her with introducing the latest technology to his stores and more recently with the successful inclusion of a breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant in the company’s newest store on Community Road at Exit 24 off I-77. Sharpe said because of the success and popularity of the Exit 24 restaurant, he plans to add restaurants to some of his other stores.
Sharpe is adding improvements to two of his stores—the one in the EXXON station on Blythewood Road in downtown Blythewood and another at the Highway 34/Winnsboro Exit on I-77. He plans to build a new station/convenience store at Blythewood Road and Syrup Mill Road.
