Keremeos’ Joan McMurray has picked up two different pieces of nationwide recognition in 2024.
McMurray was recently selected as one of 10 store-level Star Women in Grocery by Canadian Grocer, which came as a shock to her.
“We’ve received the magazine for many years including that issue, the Star Women in Grocery, thinking that we could never qualify in our small little community for an award at that level,” said McMurray.
Among the various criteria at the store level are things like keeping or increasing sales, employee retention, health and safety and meeting challenges.
Over the last several years, through the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple wildfires, landslides and highway closures, the store and community have faced plenty of challenges.
“That’s our comfort level where if the highways are closed, we may not have your favourite brand, we do have something for you,” said McMurray. “And we make sure to always keep at least one full pallet of water on hand.”
McMurray said supporting the community was another part of why she thinks she was nominated, from programs like the Starfish Pack to the school breakfast club, to the Elks and the Rodeo Association, to the Similkameen Sizzle, to the Volunteer Fire Department as well as helping individuals and families during emergencies.
“When people are displaced almost in the middle of the night and needing to stock a response centre, well, I’ve come to the store and opened it up so that we can load up on water and snacks and everything else,” said McMurray.
The recent piece of recognition wasn’t the only one McMurray and earlier in the year she was awarded the Leadership Excellence Award from Patterson Food Group, the parent company of Buy-Low, Save-On and Nester’s.
“I wasn’t able to attend, and all of a sudden I’m getting all these text messages that say congratulations and so on and so forth and I had no idea what they were talking about,” said McMurray. “I didn’t know that I was going to win an award.”
The most important thing McMurray wanted to stress was her recognition needs to be shared with her team,
“You have to work as hard or harder than the people you supervise because if you’re asking them to do a little bit extra, they should see you do a lot extra,” said McMurray. “I’m not very good about blowing my own horn. It’s about the rest of the team and making sure that they get recognition.”
McMurray is included in the June/July edition of Canadian Grocer.
