Jensen, Bob

Tucson Oddity: Star on pole reminds some of a long-gone drugstore by Brian J. Pedersen. Arizona Daily Star, February 1, 2010. ...for many longtime Tucsonans, the building on the northeast corner of East Fifth Street and North Craycroft Road will always be known as Star Drug. It's now the home of a civil and structural engineering firm. But for more than 40 years, the 10,000-square-foot building was part of a local chain of drugstores that popped up throughout Tucson between 1953 and 1986. Of those stores, however, Star Drug might have been the most well-known because of its trademark star perched on a pole on the roof next to its drive-through window. "That was probably Bob Jensen's idea," retired pharmacist Marty Ronstadt said about one of the co-owners of Defender Drug Stores, of which Star Drug was a part. "He was a very innovative guy." The star is still there, as is the drive-through bay and a marquee sign on the corner that marks the location of the long-gone Burcham Plaza, which that shopping center was once called. "We like having that star up there," said Marcia Grenier, co-owner of Grenier Engineering, which has occupied the building since 2007. "It's like a landmark. We've had offers from people wanting to buy it, but we've said, 'No thanks.' " Jensen, according to his obituary that ran in the Arizona Daily Star in 2002, and partner Lyle Crandall at one time owned nine stores in the Defender chain. The two men eventually sold the stores in 1987 to SupeRX Drug Co., which eventually passed the stores on to other owners. Star Drug's location was last a pharmacy in the early 2000s, when it was an Osco, according to city business records...