IRONWOOD, MI - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - Walgreens Manager Steve Martens welcomes the Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors and several City officials for a ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday. The ribbon cutting kicked off the store's official grand opening.

The new store at 802 East Cloverland Drive opened its doors for the first time on Friday, July 25, 2008.  The new store is approximately13,650 square feet and has a drive-thru pharmacy window. Eventually, the store will keep a staff of about 25 employees on hand, however, they are currently staffed with 16 people.

In addition to drive-thru service, the new Walgreens offers extensive pharmacy services, including a variety of options to refill medications. Touch-tone service allows a patient to enter their prescription number and request a time for a refill by touch-tone without having to speak directly to pharmacy staff. Patients may also arrange for automated refills and receive e-mail reminders of refill status.

The store features one-hour photo processing, passport photos and digital photo services. Customers can share photos with family and friends across the country when they upload digital pictures from their home computer for pick-up at any Walgreens nationwide.

The cosmetics department has full-time beauty advisors trained to help customers select cosmetics that are right for them.

Unlike other many other national stores, the Walgreens chain prefers to do "soft openings" (quietly opening for a few weeks before having a Grand Opening) to allow new employees a chance to learn the system before being bombarded with new customers. The company operates 6,271 drugstores in 49 states and Puerto Rico. New stores are being constructed in Ashland and Superior, Wisconsin.

Nation-wide, Walgreens fills nearly 600 million perscriptions annually. 266,000 people throughout the country work for Walgreens. Nearly 5 million people visit Walgreens each and every day.

"Our stores very typically have very extensive pharmacy services, so, what we would hope is that people who may not be familiar with Walgreens would be welcome, and come to our stores and see at the new store all the pharmacy services that it has to offer." There are 201 Walgreens stores in Michigan; 202 stores in Wisconsin; and 117 stores in Minnesota.

Walgreens Mission Statement explains the chain's success: "We will treat each other with respect and dignity and do the same for all we serve. We will offer employees of all backgrounds a place to build careers. We will provide the most convenient access to healthcare services and consumer goods in America. We will earn the trust of our customers and build shareholder value."