Employees, community remember grocer Harp.

SPRINGDALE — Friends remember Gerald L. Harp as a caring and giving member of the community.

Harp, who died Friday, was the son of Harvard and Floy Harp, founders of Harps Food Stores.

Harp, 80, was born in Springdale and worked 45 years in the family business, where he served as president and chief executive officer from 1995 to 2001.

“He cared about the future of his associates and employees,” said Huey Couch, who retired from the stores after 55 years.

When it came time for Harp to retire in 2001, he sold the company to the employees rather than another business. He gave 10% of his share of the sale to long-term employees of the company.

“Harp’s Food Stores operated on the belief that if associates and customers were served, that the company would be successful,” reads his obituary on the website of Sisco Funeral Chapel in Springdale.

“Three words to describe Gerald Harp are kindness, humility and generosity,” said Pam Everett, a longtime associate. “It was a privilege to him to be generous, but he didn’t want any attention for it. He lived to make life better for others.”

Everett said most people don’t know Harp bought fish each year to stock the pond in Murphy Park so children would have a chance at fishing. He also literally dug water wells in South America to bring clean water to the people there, she added.

Harp joined the local Rotary Club in 1968, served as president in 1977-1978 and the district governor of Rotary International in 2004-2005. Membership under Harp’s tenure as governor was second in the country and fifth in the world, said Heath Ward, current president of the Springdale Rotary Club.

Harp’s goal as district governor was for others to follow his example, Everett said.

“There’s one reason Gerald Harp joined the Rotary Club,” she said. “And that was to fight polio through the club’s Polio Plus campaign.”

Harp also supported First Baptist Church of Springdale, the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, Broyles Matthews Scholarship and Springdale Rotary Family Park. He also helped finance Harp Elementary School in honor of his parents and their children, according to his obituary.

Harp served in the Army during the Berlin Wall crisis and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1966.

“He believed in something, and he put his energy there,” Ward said. “He wasn’t just important to Springdale. He was important to people outside of Springdale, too.”

Truman Stamps met Harp when both were about 3 years old. Harp’s grandparents had a farm east of town. The land now holds the Harps store on Butterfield Road and East Robinson Avenue. Stamps’ family lived across the street, and the boys — along with Harp’s older brother Reland — often worked at the Harp farm.

Stamps said his Springdale High School graduating class of 1958 celebrated its 50th anniversary with a trip to Branson.

“And we found out that he, his wife and two other people paid for it all,” Stamps said. “To me, he was the epitome of a real American gentleman.”

“He really did have an incredible sense of humor,” Everett said, noting that he loved to jump out of doors to scare his wife and children.

“He was bigger than life and full of life,” Couch recalled. “His laugh was contagious.”

Harp is survived by his wife, Vicki Harp; daughters Timi Ray and husband Frank and Jackie Harp; stepdaughters Christy Moreno and husband Gerry and Heather Scholl.