By Rebecca Goodman
Enquirer staff writer

FORT WRIGHT - Alvin L. Schulte, former owner of Schulte Drug Stores in Covington, Latonia and Erlanger, died Saturday evening at St. Charles Care Center. He was 87.

"A lot of people knew those stores around Northern Kentucky," said his daughter, Jean Ann Schulte of Wayland, Mass.

"The story is that my father was the first in his family to become a pharmacist. He put his two brothers through the College of Pharmacy and they ran (the stores) together.

Mr. Schulte was a 1938 graduate of the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy.

"He sold those three drug stores to his brothers (and) subsequently opened the pharmacy in the Van Leunens (department store) in Erlanger."

In 1959, then-Kentucky Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler appointed him to a five-year term on the state Board of Pharmacy.

"You wanted to be a pharmacist, you had to get past" Mr. Schulte, who conducted all of the oral and written exams for the state, his daughter said.

He sold his business to his son in 1981 and retired.

Mr. Schulte was a member of the Kentucky Pharmaceutical Association and the National Association of Retail Druggists, as well as a past president of the Northern Kentucky Pharmaceutical Association.

"He was just an old-fashioned, really highly skilled pharmacist," his daughter said. "He really served his neighborhoods."

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife, Ida Mae Imfeld Meyers Schulte; a son, Alvin J. Schulte of Walton; two stepsons, Robert Meyers of Erlanger and Thomas Meyers of Merritt Island, Fla.; another daughter, Mary S. Kastner of Bedford, Ky.; two stepdaughters, Shirley Bosch of Hartwell and Peggy Balke of Hollywood, Fla.; three brothers, Ed of Fort Wright, Bob of Phoenix and Joseph of Park Hills; a sister, Dorothy Funke of Edgewood; 20 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

The funeral is 10 a.m. today at St. Charles Care Center Chapel, 500 Farrell Drive, Fort Wright.

Entombment will be at St. Mary Cemetery in St. Bernard.

Memorials: Alvin L. Schulte Scholarship Fund, University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, Dean's Office, 725 Rose Street, Suite 327 Lexington, KY 40536.