Hurricane pharmacy receives in-person recognition from governor for COVID prevention efforts

Written by Chris Reed
March 23, 2022

HURRICANE — It could have been any normal day at the Hurricane Family Pharmacy on Friday.

Owner Cliff Holt laughs with Gov. Spencer Cox during his visit to Hurricane Family Pharmacy, Hurricane, Utah, March 18, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Patrons were coming in and out. Employees were at the counter taking prescriptions, and pharmacists were in the back room filling prescriptions. 

But as an older veteran wearing his army veteran hat walked in, he couldn’t be blamed for his double-take as he noticed a familiar face in the room. 

Yes, that was the governor of Utah, who had made a stop at the pharmacy, located at 25 N. 2000 West in Hurricane, on his way to the groundbreaking of the Washington County Receiving Center mental health care facility nearby.

The governor’s office said Gov. Spencer Cox was dropping by to thank the pharmacy for its work during the pandemic. Hurricane Family, in December 2020, was one of the first places outside of the Southwest Utah Public Health Department and Intermountain Healthcare to offer the COVID-19 vaccine locally. 

Owner Cliff Holt, who started the pharmacy in 2009 with four employees and now has more than 40, gave the governor a grand tour from the front counter to the back processing area hidden from public view. This included showing the governor the pharmacies lab and sorting machines in the back and also introducing Cox to his “robot”: the Parata Max that fills vials up front. 

Owner Cliff Holt laughs shows Gov. Spencer Cox the Parata Max pill-sorting robot during his visit to Hurricane Family Pharmacy, Hurricane, Utah, March 18, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

And Cox said he was overwhelmed.

“I thought you just counted pills here,” Cox told Holt as the two roamed the store. 

Talking later to St. George News, Cox still said he was amazed by Holt’s operation. 

“It was incredible,” he said. “What’s happening there, the technology that they’re using in their pharmacy to make a difference in so many people’s lives and save lives …  it was revolutionary, and it was fun to see.” 

Holt said he became known around the governor’s office for his persistence. He contacted the governor’s office right when the vaccine first became available, because he said he wanted to be part of the solution that stopped COVID-19 in Southern Utah.  While the vaccine is readily available now, those with short memories might not remember the long lines and phased rollout of the vaccine in late 2020 when vaccine supplies were short. 

“It was because I could see there was going to be a shortage – I was relentless. I talked to the poor governor’s staff. I said, ‘Look, we have the facility, we have the manpower to do this. We have nine pharmacists here. We have five nurses. We can go do this in the community,’” Holt said. “It took a little convincing and they gave us a shot.”

In a file photo, Cliff Holt speaks with a client about getting a COVID-19 vaccination, St. George, Utah, July 28, 2021 | Photo by David Dudley, St. George News

In the first 48 hours, Hurricane Family gave out 1,000 shots of the vaccine. 

Holt and the pharmacy also began going out in the community with Southern Utah’s first mobile vaccine clinic as well as having drive-thru weekend vaccination clinics. 

Because of that, the pharmacy became a focus of local anti-vaccine activists who Holt said would show up and harass him while he and his staff inoculated people against a disease that could potentially put them in the hospital or kill them. 

“They would get the schedule and follow me around and they had big billboards and loudspeakers and picketing signs,” he said. “Some people don’t want to hear it. They can believe what they want to believe. I’m just going on.

“The crazy thing with COVID is every week is, something new comes out, we’re still learning. We’re going to learn stuff next week. We just do the best we can do with the knowledge we have. And we share that.”

Last week, Cox also named Holt to be part of a team that he said will create a framework to reduce health care costs and improve health outcomes in the state. 

Called the One Utah Health Collaborative, the group will set statewide health goals, create a governance structure, set benchmarks and establish accountability measures. The group will ultimately present recommendations to the governor in July 2022. 

“He’s huge on health care. He wants the best health for our state. Like we do,” Holt said of Cox.” That’s what our goal is, is to get the best health care to our, to our community. And so I wanted to show him some things we’re doing just outside the box.  There’s a lot of things we do great in Utah. There’s things we could do better.”

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Reed serves as a reporter for St. George News, where he has been honored with several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work, including first-place accolades. He started his journalism career as a sports reporter and editor in Southern California where he once compared shoe sizes with Shaquille O'Neal and exchanged mix tapes with members of the Los Angeles Kings. After growing up in the San Fernando Valley learning karate skills from Mr. Miyagi and spending a decade in Las Vegas mostly avoiding the casinos, he came to St. George for love and married his soulmate, a lifetime Southern Utah resident. He is the proud father of two boys, his youngest a champion against both autism and Type 1 diabetes.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGNews

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