‘She will forever be our North Star’: McCaskill & Company remembers co-founder Elizabeth Campbell

For three decades, Elizabeth Campbell poured herself into the details — the marketing, the personal touches, the quiet work behind the scenes that helped a small jewelry kiosk in Seaside grow into one of the most respected family-owned jewelers in the Southeast.

• On Friday, the Destin community lost her. Campbell, 74, was struck by a vehicle during her morning walk in a residential neighborhood in Niceville. McCaskill & Company announced her passing Sunday, calling her “our Matriarch and the guiding light of what built McCaskill & Company.”

“Elizabeth was one of the brightest, wisest, kindest, most wonderful people I have ever known,” a friend of the family wrote in a tribute shared by the company. “She exuded joy and strength. She was a steel magnolia with a massive heart.”

Long before the jewelry world knew her name, Campbell had already built a career devoted to helping others. She earned master’s degrees in psychology and health education and spent 25 years working in community mental health as a licensed therapist and administrator — all while raising three children with her husband, Bill.

Bill Campbell founded McCaskill & Company in 1994, naming the store after his grandmother, Gussie McCaskill Campbell, who had sparked his love of gems and jewelry when he was a boy. He started with a small kiosk in Seaside, then moved to the Market Shops at Sandestin, where he was the sole employee. As the business grew, Elizabeth began handling administrative and marketing duties in the evenings — a role that steadily expanded.

When the company moved to its current standalone location in 1999, she made the leap to full time. Bill worked the sales floor. Elizabeth ran everything else — operations, administration, personnel and the marketing that became a hallmark of the McCaskill brand.

• “Although she considers herself ‘behind the scenes,’ her influence is readily detected in her elaborate marketing and her attention to all the details from personnel to all the special ‘touches’ that you receive from McCaskill & Company,” the store’s website reads.

The family business eventually grew to include their daughter, Carolyn Brigman, who opened a fashion jewelry boutique called Sarah Carolyn in 2008 before taking on a larger role at McCaskill & Company. In recent years, the mother-daughter team oversaw day-to-day operations and a staff of 18, with a major renovation underway — a project Elizabeth helped shape.

The friend’s tribute called her “an amazing business woman who led McCaskill & Company to become one of the finest family-owned jewelers in America. The loss of her vibrant smile, talent and leadership is incalculable. Our industry has lost one of its true stars.”

The family’s own farewell was captured in a single line: “Elizabeth/Mom, you will forever be our North Star.”