Terrel Seely dies at 81, leaves legacy of six grocery stores, community involvement

MT. PLEASANT—Terrel Seely, who bought a tiny grocery store on Main Street in Mt. Pleasant in the early 1970s and expanded the business to six grocery stores from Payson to Fillmore, died Friday, March 13 at 81.

Seely became known for operating higher quality stores than might be expected based on the sizes of the communities where they were located, for recruiting and retaining enthusiastic staff, for trying to keep prices competitive and for his community involvement.

Seely met his wife, Glenda, at BYU. Two years later, they were married in the Manti.

Temple. Seely majored in zoology with hopes of becoming a fish and game officer. After graduation, they moved to Mt. Pleasant.

In a profile in the Sanpete Messenger in 2012 when they were named grand marshals of the Hub City Days parade, Glenda said her husband took odd jobs while waiting for a job to open up with Utah Fish and Game.

One day, he was shopping at the Red and White Market, owned by Al Berti. As Glenda told the story, he asked Berti when he was going to sell the store to him. “As a matter of fact,” Berti replied, “I’ve got a bad back and was thinking about getting out of the business.”

At the time, the Seelys had two children, one 2 and one 6 months. And the Red and White Market was located next door to a Safeway.

Nonetheless, Terrel borrowed enough money from his parents to qualify for a bank loan and bought the little store.

A few years later, the Safeway went out of business. The Seelys bought and expanded into the Safeway building.

Then a bigger store called Doug’s Double Discount opened on the south end of Mt. Pleasant. “That knocked us back,” Glenda said.

As it turned out, Doug’s ran into tax problems and closed. The building on the south end of town sat vacant for three years until 1991 when Terrel made a deal with the building owner, who lived in Spanish Fork, to buy it. That’s where Terrel’s Market is located today.

Meanwhile, Terrel started branching out. In 1990, he opened a second store in Gunnison. In 1991, he opened Nebo Market in Nephi. In 1996, Payson Market in Payson joined the developing chain.

His next store was what became Fillmore Market in Fillmore, followed in 2019 by construction of a new store in Santaquin.

According to Glenda Seely, Terrel was a hands-on manager who, up to his retirement, worked long hours every day. And some of his employees spent most of their careers working for his stores.

One such employee was Kevin Anderson, who became Meat Department manager at Terrel’s on the south end of Mt. Pleasant in 1998. His wife joined him as meat wrapper, and the pair stayed in those roles for 24 years.

At the time of their retirement, the Andersons’ adult daughter, Katie Gleve, who lives in Mt. Pleasant and has a photography business, said, “We live in an amazing place, and Terrel’s is a big part of that.”

One standout example of Seely’s and the store’s commitment to community service was their response to Helping Hams, a commitment by Devron Larson of Fairview to give away a few hams anonymously that expanded into a communitywide project.

When he started, Larson merely bought a few hams between Thanksgiving and Christmas and walked around Terrel’s looking for people who might need one. He dropped a ham in such a person’s cart along with a receipt showing the ham was paid for and wished the person a happy holiday.

In about 2020, the response of one recipient moved Larson so much he decided to expand the effort. He contacted Scott Hymas, CEO of Terrel’s Market. When Larson went to meet Hymas, Terrel Seely was present. Terrel thanked Larson for spearheading the project.

Besides giving deep discounts on hams, the store permitted him to set up a booth for collecting donations and distributing what had become full dinner packages. Then Blake Rosenlof, the store director, walked Larson through the store, allowing him to pick up other needed items. The discounts the store gave on the items added up to $1,000.

Besides running grocery stores, Terrel served on the board of Associated Foods and as chairman of the board of the Utah Grocers Association.

He and Glenda have seven adult children. He served as bishop of his LDS ward, and after his retirement, he and Glenda served two LDS missions.

In mid-February, Ridley Family Markets, which operates 30 stores in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming and has 2,000 employees, announced it had acquired the Terrel’s Market stores.

The acquisition is scheduled to close, with new signage going up at the stores, in early April. Anita Ridley, chairwoman of the board of Ridley’s said the deal was “more than a business transaction” but a reflection of the two companies’ shared focus on family values, kindness and community involvement.

In her interview with the Messenger in 2012, Glenda said her and her husband’s lives might have been easier if they had moved to a big city where there would have been more opportunities.

But, she said, Terrel was always committed to making it in the place where he was born. “He really likes this country and the mountains,” she said. “He loves Mt. Pleasant.”