After decades of work and service to the community of Logan, a well-known businessman has decided to retire.

Don Elkins Music store in downtown Logan has been a staple of the local business scene since 1975. The store is set to close down in the next few days, Elkins said this morning.

“I started Don Elkins Music, Inc., on the corner at 104 Main Street and moved to the present location at 204 Main Street in 1985 when we bought the bottom two floors of the Sears Building,” Elkins said.

Elkins told The Logan Banner he has wanted to retire for some time, and had tried to sell the store a few years ago.

“I am 73 years old and worked 53 years (in the music business) so that is enough,” Elkins said “When I graduated from West Virginia University, I was 20 years old and went to work then and have not stopped since.”

Currently, the store is having a going-out-of-business sale, which ends with the store’s closing tomorrow.

“We know it is going through this Saturday and we will play it by ear,” he said. “We have gotten rid of a lot of stuff and we still have a lot of stuff left for sale.”

Vern Henderson, a repairman/technician/salesman for 28 years with the store, and Elkins’ close friends Gary Hylton and Tim Secrist have been helping Elkins and his family with the store-closing sale.

Elkins was born and raised on the Missouri Fork of Hewett Creek on the Logan- Boone County line and attended Scott High School, from which he graduated. He majored in music at WVU and graduated in 1957. He returned to Scott High School as the band director from 1957 until he left for Logan High School in 1962.

When he came to Logan in 1962 to be the band director, Elkins said he had no idea he would become a part of the community’s business and civic club scene. He served until 1969 as band director at Logan High. He was honored by the West Virginia Kiwanis twice as a Distinguished President and later as a Distinguished Lt. Governor.

Elkins has served as a board member of the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, The Aracoma Story, Inc., Logan County Community Fund, and Logan Business Association. He has been active in Nighbert Memorial United Methodist Church ever since coming to Logan.

Elkins has fond memories of those days when Willie Akers, Todd Willis, Jimmy Joe Willis, Bob Lonker, Jack Stone and George Nesbitt welcomed him into the fold at Logan High School.

“It was a great relationship. There was no friction between athletics and the band. During seventh period on Thursdays, the junior high schools played football on the field when we needed the field to practice. Willie and Jimmy Joe would referee those games and they would tell the team at 1:30, during half time, to stay in the locker rooms (while we were practicing.) Those visiting coaches, to this day, did not know why the halftimes were so long.

“We had three junior high directors which made my job much easier,” he recalled. “Everybody had a home room, even the coaches. I believe the largest graduating class we had at Logan High was in 1966 when 545 seniors graduated. Another year we had 519, and there were three classes in a row with more than 500 seniors.

“We had plenty of students for a big band. We limited the band to 150 members because we only had 150 uniforms and you could only fit 168 people on four Trailways buses — band plus chaperones. We had a lot of good students.”

Elkins’ seven-year tenure as band director at Logan High School was full of honors.

“Don Elkins’ time as band director at Logan High School was legendary,” said WVOW Radio General Manager Larry “Speedy” Bevins.

“It was a good time,” Elkins remembered. “The band was fortunate to be asked to perform at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City in 1964, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1965, The Expo ’67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1967, and The Orange Bowl Parade in Miami in 1969.

Elkins said the LHS band was also honored when Bobby Kennedy’s organization asked them to play for Kennedy’s visit to Logan in the spring of 1968.

“I saw more people in this town that day than anyone could remember,” Elkins recalled. “We ended up accompanying them on to Madison and Charleston.

“The thing I remember best is the Macy’s Parade in 1965 in New York. We were the featured Santa Claus Band. The Macy’s Parade producers had seen us at the Miss America Parade the year before and this led to our being invited to their parade. We were told to prepare a 5-minute presentation. Taking no chances, the main parade producer came to Logan to see us himself in early November to see if we were ready. I never saw it rain so hard, and Willie was having basketball practice in the gym. When I asked him for the gym he said fine and took his boys to the grade school. We ran through the show with the march and the medley. We had to do it again, and the producer said we would be the band to introduce Santa Claus.”

“It was 55 degrees in New York the day of the parade and it was a five mile march. We started at Central Park and 85th Street. It was a march of over 50 blocks. One float had a breakdown that took them out of the parade. That caused us to reach Herald Square five minutes early. We did our march and medley and parted to let the Santa float come through. We were actually on television for about 15 minutes to help fill up the television time block. Television was not as sophisticated as it is now.

“The only regret that I have is that we never were able to find a copy of the film of us from that parade. We did get film of ourselves in the Orange Bowl Parade but we never could find any film from the Macy’s Parade.”

Ironically, Elkins did not come from a musical family. His father was a World War I veteran and was a coal miner who was killed in 1950 in the mines. His mother was a teacher and was instrumental in his taking piano lessons.

Elkins and his wife, Elnora, reside at McConnell. Elnora taught five years in Logan schools and retired after an additional 25 years as a professor at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. They are the parents of two sons, Chuck and David.

Over the years, Elkins owned and operated stores in Pineville, Beckley, at the Rita Mall and in the South Side Mall in South Williamson, Ky.

Elkins told The Logan Banner that the thing he will miss most after closing his business will be seeing the many good friends he has made over the 34 years he has operated Don Elkins Music. He said he wants to thank his many loyal customers.

(Managing Editor Michael Browning also contributed to this report.)