Hastings Entertainment has long been one of Amarillo's best-known success stories. The media retail chain rose from humble beginnings as an offshoot of sister company Western Merchandisers, a wholesale supplier of music, books and other items in 1968, to 156 locations from Washington to Florida by the 21st century.

But fortunes change.

On June 13, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, announcing that if it didn't find a buyer by Wednesday, July 13, its doors would close forever.

Walking through the Amarillo headquarters of Hastings, John Marmaduke, CEO of Hastings until 2014 and son of founder Sam Marmaduke, reminisced on the history of the family company. Lining the office walls were photographs of management conferences from the 1970s to the 21st century. Entertainment icons ranging from Willie Nelson to Stephen King performed for and spoke to the staff of Hastings over the years.

Small-town giant

"One that really stands out is Willie Nelson," Marmaduke said as he looked at the photographs from the 1977 management conference where the famed Texas country singer performed. "It was before he broke out."

While Nelson had gained some fame, 1978 was the year that his seminal album "Stardust" was released, debuting at the top of the Billboard charts and setting the stage for the Red-Headed Stranger to become the top-grossing live act in the United States.

His visit also came before Hastings broke out.

The first store was founded in 1968, a test outlet for Western Merchandisers, a company founded by John's father, Sam Marmaduke.

"A hundred people have asked me about the name," John Marmaduke said. "My dad saw a store in London when he was there on vacation. It had a large selection of periodicals, and with it had a large selection of cassettes and a large set of best sellers. A light bulb went off, and he realized it made so much sense to sell these things together."

That store was called Hastings.

The Marmadukes wanted a name that would not draw attention to Western Merchandisers.

"It was important for us to have a name that didn't tie us to our wholesale company … which was supplying many competitors at the time," John Marmaduke said.

In 1968, Led Zeppelin had just formed, The Beatles were still together, Jimi Hendrix was still writing and recording, and the screenplays for "The Godfather" and "Star Wars" hadn't been written yet. Stanley Kubrick's opus, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was the top-grossing film that year, earning $56,700,000. Stephen King was six years away from releasing his first book, "Carrie."

Around the time King's hit novel "The Shining" received the Kubrick treatment and hit the big screen in 1980, the author gave a speech to Hastings associates at a leadership meeting, Marmaduke said. The horror novelist was slated to talk on the first day and stuck around to see rock band Journey perform the next.

Marmaduke said the concert was amazing and King was happy he stayed to watch.

Another year of entertainment memories.

The big one for Hastings, however, was Garth Brooks. Sam Marmaduke was a 20-year member of the Country Music Association's board, and the company often brought country acts into the spotlight. John Marmaduke said that Brooks' success through Hastings sales helped to expose the corruption of the Billboard charts.

"It used to be bought and sold," he explained. "Garth Brooks had sold 100,000 copies of (1990 breakout album "No Fences") at Hastings alone and it didn't chart. People smelled something fishy."

It's a little-known fact.

Here's another: Hastings also established Tuesday as the release day for new products, including books and albums.

"It was one of the slowest retail days, and if you ran out of a best seller, which often happened, you could have it re-stocked for the weekend," Marmaduke said, with quiet confidence. The rest of the industry followed suit.

At the time, Hastings was a small company that changed the landscape of media retail in outsized ways.

Since those days, nearly everything about media distribution has changed. The internet decimated the traditional methods of selling all forms of media. Most music, books, movies and video games are now bought and sold online or from kiosks outside the local supermarket.

But 10 or 15 years ago, in many small and medium markets, renting a movie wasn't easy, let alone finding an obscure foreign film or music CD by controversial acts. Hastings supplied these to thousands of customers across the country. Sam Marmaduke referred to this strategy as "running towards the light," it was easy pickings.

Jose Cordova, 28, who lives in Perryton, a town of about 10,000 in the proverbial middle of nowhere - a two-hour drive northwest of Amarillo and a three-and-a-half hour drive east of Oklahoma City - explained that as a fan of heavy metal music, Hastings was often his only recourse as a teenager.

"I love metal, and the first CD I ever bought was at a Hastings in Liberal, Kan.," he said.

"'Reroute to Remain' by In Flames," Cordova said, recalling the name of the band and album. "At the time you couldn't find stuff like that at other retail stores, but Hastings always had something cool."

This was important.

Hastings used its wider selection of media to gain a foothold against big-box retailers such as Walmart in the early days, and expanded their selection to maintain their spot in the market.

"As a specialty store, we were always going to have a better selection of goods than Walmart," Marmaduke said. "That's just the nature of specialty retail."

The golden years

The Marmaduke family sold Western Merchandisers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1991, the same year grunge rock innovators Nirvana released the breakout "Nevermind" album which featured the decade-defining "Smells like Teen Spirit."

Marmaduke was the CEO of Western Merchandisers and Hastings, and under the sale agreement he was to split his time equally between the two companies.

However, this was during Wal-Mart's aggressive 1990s expansion. Marmaduke said Western Merchandisers went from $50 million to $500 million within five years. He couldn't keep pace with the rapid expansion and lead Hastings, so in 1993 he declined to renew his contract with the soon-to-be retailing monolith. The following year, Wal-Mart sold Western Merchandising.

The following years were a "golden age" for Hastings, Marmaduke recalled. At this point, all of his attention was laid on the remaining section of his family business.

Between 1995 and 1997, the company opened 23 new stores, putting Hastings in control of 114 stores spread across 15 states. If there was a small or mid-sized market, Hastings wanted to sell books and CDs, and rent movies.

Lauren Beyea, 30, who lives in Austin, said Hastings was "the place I used to go with my friends to do blind foreign movie picks and force our way through (them) each week."

"Even if the movie was causing physical illness due to gratuitous violence or poor dialogue, we had to see it through to the end," she said. "There were some really awful ones. … It's where I learned what shock cinema was."

It wasn't all bad, and Beyea, through Hastings, discovered a lot of foreign cinema while attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., that she wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise.

For Andrew Sanchez, 22, of Amarillo, the appeal was also in the movie selection. He would often rent and buy films from the store, as well as seasons of television programs. He said he appreciated the chain's "big selection" of titles, echoing Beyea's sentiment.

"I've frequented Hastings for a while. I come every chance I get," Sanchez said, standing in the parking lot of an Amarillo Hastings. "There's nothing really bad to say about it."

In 1998, Marmaduke announced plans to open 20 new stores - the most at one time in Hastings' history - fueled by the success of previous years.

He also initiated a plan to renovate their existing stores. It was to be a costly undertaking, so the leadership decided an initial public offering (IPO) of Hastings stock would be the best way to finance it.

At $13 a share, the IPO netted $32 million, the same year Stephen Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" earned $216,540,909 at the box office, edging out the Ben Affleck-driven "Armageddon."

By 1999, there were 149 Hastings locations throughout the U.S., and in May of that year Hastings launched goHastings.com, the company's e-commerce site that focused on the sale of used products.

Through the first decade of the 21st century, Hastings reigned. In Marmaduke's home office, numerous awards for his management and Hastings' success are displayed. But by 2009, it became apparent that Hastings, as well as other big box media retailers, were in trouble.

Going to the record store on Tuesdays was replaced by checking iTunes for the latest releases, and since 2007 Netflix has been streaming movies to computers and televisions. For the films unavailable to stream, Redbox had you covered. The kiosk service achieved its billionth rental that year.

'We saw it coming'

Marmaduke said he saw it coming. "We knew in the early 2000s. … It was discussed in nearly every boarding meeting."

He said they had plans in place, but didn't expect the "preferential" agreements the music and film industries gave online retailers such as iTunes and Redbox.

"iTunes got the .99 cent single, Redbox got the .99 cent rental," the former CEO said, referring to two present-day giants in media distribution. It was hard to compete with those prices, even with Hastings' "lean" approach to expenses, such as leasing property in small markets as opposed to purchasing to keep costs down.

Music, the commodity Hastings offered to starving small towns throughout its history, was no longer enough to keep the company afloat. When the first store opened in 1968, patrons listened to music on vinyl at home and 8-track in the car.

Today, even the .99 cent single isn't preferred: consumers have decided the $10 a month subscription to a music streaming service is the best way to get their music fix.

In a pivot away from the ailing music industry, Hastings partnered with Diamond Comics Distributors in 2010, just as Marvel Studios began producing superhero flicks that now dominate the box office every summer. In an interview with comic website Bleeding Cool at the time, Senior Buyer of Trends James Parker, who oversaw the comics bought and sold at Hastings, said the move was a commitment used to shore against losses from declining music sales and movie rentals.

Parker said "several of [Hastings'] key personnel and our CEO, John Marmaduke, saw great potential in comics as a growing market." These, coupled with increased sales of licensed products and collectibles, were to maintain Hastings' solvency.

But it wasn't enough to keep Hastings in the black. The company posted profits of $6.93 million in 2010, and $1.7 million in 2011. Then, in 2012, the company lost $17.57 million, and in 2013, $9.31 million, according to financial website Amigo Bulls. At this point, the board began seriously considering selling the company.

Amid reports that it would post significant losses for years to come, the company started shopping itself to 40 potential buyers, according to a 2014 Amarillo Globe-News report. New Jersey-based Draw Another Circle LLC, which already owned more than 12 percent of Hastings' stock and deals in collectibles and media, was the only interested entity, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Hastings was sold for $21.4 million. The purchase was finalized by July 2014, called for Hastings to be privatized and for John Marmaduke to step down as CEO of the company his father started. He received a $1.5 million severance package, and stockholders were paid $3 a share.

That same year, Hastings lost $10.18 million. In the year and a half since, they haven't fared much better for either Hastings or its owner. It wasn't just Hastings in the Chapter 11 filing, but everything in the Draw Another Circle portfolio.

Uncertain future

Jim Litwak was named Hastings' president in December 2015. During an interview with the Globe-News, Litwak said "everything was on the table" in the bankruptcy proceedings. He served as the CEO of Macy's from 1980 to 1994, guiding it through 1990s bankruptcy proceedings and back into profitability. He also ran Trans World Entertainment from 2005 to 2010. The company owns FYE, one of the few surviving media retailers in the U.S.

"My entire career has served to prepare me" for Hastings' troubles, he said.

Litwak also said that Hastings had already returned to profitability, due in large part to the 32 "refreshed" stores that saw licensed products and other collectibles pushed to the front, and the books and CDs upon which the franchise was built relegated. These new products are selling better than the digital media one can stream.

Former CEO Maraduke has said that he hopes a buyer will come in and give the company a chance to move forward with the "refreshed" layout for the stores.

"I think it's exciting, and it's certainly worth someone's effort and investment," he said, stressing that he no longer works for Hastings in any way and has no monetary interest in the company continuing.

But if no buyer feels the same way, the doors will, most likely, close by Wednesday.

It's possible that an investor could put up enough capital for only a few stores to remain open, such as the 32 renovated locations. But this would make huge job cuts necessary.

While Marmaduke hopes the stores stay open, he doesn't want it to come to this. Hastings currently employs roughly 3,850 people. There are 36 locations in Texas, with about 12,000 jobs in the state, 411 of which are in Amarillo.

"I would love to see all of our associates continue with their jobs," Marmaduke said. "We've got a lot of wonderful people, and we'd like to see them continue to be employed. Both here in Amarillo and throughout the rest of the country."