| Robert B. Tucker | |
| Birth Date: | 5 August 1937 |
| Birth Place: | Badin, North Carolina |
| Birth Name: | Robert Bright Deese[1] |
| Death Date: | [2] |
| Organization: | Shoe Show |
| Founder[3] CEO | |
| Successor: | Lisa Tucker[4] |
| Spouse: | Carolyn Clark Tucker[5] |
Robert B. Tucker was the founder and former CEO of Shoe Show.[3]
As a baby Tucker's parents divorced. Years later, his mother, Gertrude Cranford Deese married Hugh Tucker, and he adopted Tucker. The family later moved to Concord, NC, where Hugh owned Tuck’s Tavern, where Tucker immersed himself in work. In his high school years, he cleaned the parking lots of an ice cream shop and another local restaurant.[2] In his senior year of high school he secured a job at Baucom’s Shoe Store.[3]
In 1960, freshly out of high school, Tucker opened his first retail store, with his wife Carolyn Clark Tucker, in Kannapolis, North Carolina.[2] The company now has 1,000 stores over 47 USA states and brings in over one billion in annual sales.[6]
In 2010 the Tucker Student Center, at Gardner-Webb University was named after Robert.[7] Nine years later in 2019, the Tucker Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength Scholarship is named after the Tucker family.[8]
Tucker and his wife, Carolyn Clark, have four children, Jacqueline, Robert (Bobby), Greg, and Lisa.[9] [3]