Donnie Madewell keeps smiling through adversity and prosperity, and he’s had plenty of both.

He’s enjoyed a home and vehicles that were paid for, and then in a short time, a family bankruptcy that shook him and his family to the core. It was a time when he learned who his true friends were — and found he has some.

He long feared his son Austin would die of drug and alcohol addiction. But Austin came out of 15 months of Teen Challenge treatment in October 2005 with a beautiful testimony for God.

Madewell was born into a close-knit family that worked for years together in Madewell Metal Corp. His dad, Elmo Madewell, was a former Muskogee mayor. A Pentecostal preacher and a singer, Elmo Madewell was known as the singing preacher. The importance of family and Christianity were instilled in Donnie Madewell early in life.

His dad died a year before the family lost everything in a business deal in connection with their lead smelter and an out-of-state firm, he said. The Madewells had operated smelters in Muskogee and Tulsa.

Madewell went to work for his uncle in Jones for three and a half years and came back to Muskogee in 1998.

His mother had died of cancer, and his family moved into his parents’ home.

When they returned to Muskogee, he sold insurance and peddled the latest in cell phones out of his car and house for 10 years before opening a store, he recalled, chuckling.

He said it would be nothing for him to be out at Georgia-Pacific at the 1 a.m. shift change delivering cell phones to guys who had ordered them.

“I was the Dr. Marcus Welby of the phone business — I made house calls,” he said.

“I still drop phones off to customers — I’m always selling,” he said.

And the only time his cell phone isn’t ringing is when he turns it off and relaxes for two hours in a movie theater with his wife. He said he and Mickey, “the love of my life”, have been married 35 years.

He loves being around people.

“I’m a people person,” he said.