David Bowser/Globe-News Correspondent PRESIDENT AND CEO: John Marmaduke was named president of Hastings in 1973. His company has annual sales of more than $300 million.

Over John Marmaduke's desk a sign reads "Stay True to the Dreams of Your Youth." "I'm living my dream," said Marmaduke, president and chief executive officer of Hastings Books Music and Video Inc. "But it's never fulfilled. It's neverending." It's always changing.

Hastings started life as a single store in Western Plaza. John Marmaduke's father, Sam Marmaduke, founded the company in 1968 as a retail outlet for upscale music and books. It was an outgrowth of Western Merchandisers, a distribution company the senior Marmaduke established in 1961.

Hastings had five stores by 1970. John Marmaduke was named president of Hastings in 1973.

Today, the Amarillo-based company has an annual payroll in its hometown of $7.5 million and an annual payroll companywide of more than $40 million with sales in excess of $300 million.

Hastings has 108 stores in 14 states, primarily in markets with populations of 25,000 to 250,000 in the Southwestern, Western and Northwestern United States.

But in John Marmaduke's vision, it's only just begun. In his neverending dream, Hastings continues to expand. He expects to double in size by the turn of the century.

They have identified 700 markets in the United States that are underserved.

Serving 14 states now, Marmaduke plans on adding a state a year. The first one will most likely be Iowa.

This fall, Hastings will open the first of its newly designed stores in Manhattan, Kan., to meet the 21st Century. "It's really a Wow! factor," said company spokesman Molly Lyons. "It's amazing what we're about to do. It's very cool. Very on the edge. Our main target is Generation X now and the Baby Boomers."

Store designs, like the company itself, are works in progress. They are constantly being updated, improved and refined. The stores are on leased real estate and almost all expansions and remodeling have been financed through internally-generated capital, including the new store design in Manhattan.

Hastings is owned by the Marmaduke family and about 160 shareholders including company officers, board members and associates. Associates are provided with stock through an ASOP (Associate Stock Ownership Plan). In an industry of glitz, Hastings has been built on hard work and conservative business principles.

Hastings started with Marmaduke and Walter McNeer, now Hastings executive vice president, as the front office. They did everything from writing their own ads to bookkeeping to market surveys and store design. "The goal was to have as many stores as we could prudently handle with each store paying its own way," McNeer said. The operating philosophy remains pay as you go, a lean operation that can act quickly and development through experimentation. And the past decade has seen a number of changes as the parent company, Western Merchandisers, was sold to Wal-Mart in 1991, then to Anderson News Corp. in 1994. Hastings was spun off to operate independently, moving their corporate offices and distribution supply center to 3601 Plains Blvd. from the Western Merchandisers complex in the southeast part of Amarillo.

"We are no longer the corporate office," Lyons said. "We changed our name to the Store Support Center. We don't want to be known as just a big corporate office to our field people. They're just as important as we are. We work as a team. We have a real team attitude around here." The support center and distribution center employ about 300 people, she said. Hastings stores in Amarillo employ another 100 to 150, depending upon the season.