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Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in Hernando County.
What does it mean when a worldwide giant with a reputation not only for everyday low prices, but also everyday low wages, is such a heavyweight in the local economy?
What does it mean for workers? For shoppers? For government?
Yes, there is the image of blue-vested workers toiling away on store floors, restocking the very shelves they are forced to shop from because that's all they can afford.
But there is a deeper reality here in Hernando, and its layers may surprise you.
Since the company first showed its face in 1986 with the opening of a discount store on U.S. 19 in Spring Hill, Wal-Mart has helped to usher a farming and mining economy into the world of retail.
And while those jobs don't pay what government officials hope Hernando workers will eventually make, some believe Wal-Mart can help bridge the economy into one where residents can find higher-paying jobs with good benefits for their families without commuting to Pinellas or Hillsborough counties.
With three supercenters and a fourth one rumored to be on the way, a Sam's Club and a 40-acre distribution center, Wal-Mart is also the largest taxpayer - $2.34-million last year - in this county of about 160,000 people.
In Hernando, parking lots are always full at Wal-Mart, and patrons are regulars. Managers are quick to help, especially in hurricane emergencies, quietly donating food and service when no one else can. And some even like working there.
At least in Hernando, could those smiley faces be for real?
Wal-Mart employs 3,207 people in Hernando, according to company numbers. Nearly half work at the distribution center, the state's first and one of the largest. It gives Wal-Mart trucks access to Tampa Bay and Orlando in an hour.
"I love my job," says Lolita Rinehart, a 70-year-old Filipino immigrant.
Hanging from the back of her dining room chair was her blue Wal-Mart vest with her name tag. Rinehart chooses to work part time, four days a week, at the Brooksville store. She makes $9.99 an hour and has health and dental care.
According to Wal-Mart, the average wage of full-time hourly company associates in Florida is $9.85 per hour. Nationally, it's $10.11 per hour.
The Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation reported that in 2005, Hernando's average annual salary was $27,150. Those in retail made an average of $21,241.
When she moved to the county a dozen years ago, Rinehart worked at a nursing home as a maid. The role was a shock for the former salon owner who had a maid of her own in the Philippines.
Making $4.50 an hour, and with 10-cent raises a year, she said that job was humbling. She couldn't take it anymore when she found a man dead one morning in his bed as she cleaned. "But I was afraid to apply anywhere else because of the way I look and the way I talk."
In the more than three years - it will be four Sept. 18 - she's been at Wal-Mart, her accent has never gotten in the way.
She gets raises and vacation and sick leave, concepts she could have never imagined when she worked as a maid. "No one else would give me that much," she said. "And I like most of the customers."
And, so far, no dead people at Wal-Mart, says Rinehart, smiling.
* * *
Retail jobs are better than no jobs.
And, according to Mike McHugh, Hernando County's director of business development, Hernando has seen the number of retail and service sector jobs increase in recent years, just like the rest of the state.
Hernando has also seen the decline of mining- and farming-based jobs. And the economy isn't all that's changing. More families are moving into Hernando, living alongside retirees who used to dominate the county's west side. Since 2000, the population has grown by 30,000 people.
"The day someone moves to a community, they start spending money there," McHugh said. "So retail and the service sector happens quick. It's the nature of commerce. Medical, industrial and others typically come later."
He added: "Our long-term goal is to provide more local opportunity for higher-wage jobs." He expects a move away from a commuter economy, "especially with the rise in gas prices, pressure will be put on industries to move to where people are."
Still, McHugh doesn't see Wal-Mart's presence dwindling any time soon. There is still a large population of retired and fixed-income residents who depend on it.
* * *
At least three or four times a week, Mike and Pam Fay find themselves splitting up at Wal-Mart - Pam, 56, usually heads to the groceries and Mike, 58, to the cleaning supply or automotive sections.
The Spring Hill couple are two of about 127-million customers who shop at Wal-Mart stores weekly in the United States.
Mike owns a cleaning business, his second career. A former oil refinery machinist, Fay firmly believes that the big guy always pushes out the small guy. That's what happened to the small company he worked for in Illinois - a larger oil refinery bought it out, and he took early retirement.
"Whether it be Wal-Mart or Kmart or Target or any of those other businesses, someone's going to push out the little man," he said.
When Wal-Mart really began to dominate the Hernando retail scene in the last five or so years, other local business owners did indeed feel the impact - but not as bad as they thought they would, they say.
"People come in here all the time and say they can get this or that at Wal-Mart for $3 cheaper," Russ Peck, an employee at Pet City, said of pet supplies. "But you can't compete with a giant that can out-buy anybody and sell a product cheaper. Here, we offer customers a little bit more, like attention and information."
* * *
Jean Rags, the county's health and human services director, can't imagine Hernando without Wal-Mart. During hurricanes she is in charge of securing food, water, ice, volunteers and donations. During the tough season of 2004, a manager gave her and the Brooksville police chief keys to the store and told them to get anything they needed for responders when the Salvation Army ran out of supplies.
"Every time I call, they are always there," Rags said. Recently, at a National Association of Counties meeting, Rags ran into a Wal-Mart representative and suggested a program where store mangers win recognition for community involvement.
"Because of everything else that gets out about them," she said, "they are so gun-shy when it even comes to talking about the good things they do."
The shocked representative took down Rags' contact information. She liked the idea, too. But weeks later, Rags hasn't heard from her yet.