Well, I’m proud to be...‘True’ or ‘transplanted,’ Okies celebrate Muskogee

November 10, 2008 12:39 am

— 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.

Bankruptcy a horror to live through
Donnie Madewell said he had his home and vehicles paid for before he had to take bankruptcy in 1993.
He said you find out who your true friends are when something like that happens.
“Most of my friends stayed to help me,” he said. “I remember two weeks before Christmas (Dr.) Gary Lambert and his wife gave me a $1,000 check.”
Madewell said he was overcome with emotion and told the Lamberts he would pay them back.
“This is a gift,” they told me. That $1,000 was our Christmas,” he said.
Madewell had done that before for friends, but no one had done it for him, he said. He was overwhelmed.
He said Bob Locke helped him, and so many friends asked what they could do for him.
“Dad used to tell me you can count your true friends on one hand —sometimes your thumb. He was always asking why there are more horses’ rears than horses.”
Madewell described his bankruptcy experience as “horrible — I would drive by Okie’s and look in the window and see who was there. I was so ashamed.
“But God turned it around. And I don’t miss the scrap business.”
He said he was willing to talk about it because it might help someone with that same problem.
He said he tells someone in that predicament to remember — “they can’t eat you.”

Christian experiences are a blessing to him
“I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my life,” Madewell said. “My kids are all doing well. I don’t ever want to leave Muskogee.”
He said he owes everything to Jesus Christ.
His church, First Assembly of God, goes on three mission trips a year. He said he’s gone on three or four of them and enjoyed every minute of it.
“We raise money to build churches, and everybody pays their own way,” he said.
Sometimes 15 church members will go — sometimes 60, he said. His last trek was to a reservation in Arizona where they helped build a church for the Apaches. He remembers a mission trip to Belize.
“The look on those people’s faces — and to be thanked so much. It just feels good to help people.”
He’s been the leader of his men’s fellowship group at his church for 20 years, and he’s been a Sunday School teacher. He’s been on the board of deacons for 28 years. He plays the trumpet every Sunday at church.
One goal he hasn’t accomplished yet is helping church members finance and begin a Teen Challenge program in Muskogee, an in-treatment facility for those with alcohol and drug problems. But they’re talking about it and working towards it.
Today, Austin Madewell, 27, is as happy to share his witness with people needing help with drugs and alcohol as his father is sharing the low times he had during bankruptcy. Both praise God.

Family man likes it that way
Madewell worked in a family business and said he feels blessed to have his two sons and his one son-in-law working in business with him.
It assures his family will be around Muskogee.
He also feels lucky to have married his high school sweetheart, Mickey, and that they enjoy being together.
“I wouldn’t do anything different — I want to do this for the rest of my life,” he said in between helping customers at his cell phone store.
“It’s very important to have a close family, and I thank God I have a close family,” he said. “I believe it all starts with church and Christ. I believe the family that prays together stays together.”
He said his family sees their church family as their extended family and spend time with many of them.
His daughter, Lauren, 24, and his wife are the only ones to escape the cell phone business, Madewell said.
Lauren has wanted to be a nurse all her life and will graduate from nursing school at the end of December in 2009, he said.

Q&A

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?
“I was born and raised here.”
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR FREE TIME?
“I do a lot with my church. My wife and I like to go to movies — not watch movies at home, because she goes to sleep watching them at home.”
HOW DO YOU MAKE A LIVING IN MUSKOGEE?
“I’m in the telephone business and help my wife in her business, The Nationals Co., a networking company or buyer’s club.”
WHAT WOULD MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?
“I’d like to see us get a Teen Challenge here to help teenagers with alcohol and drug problems.”
IS THERE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE WHO YOU ADMIRE?
“My pastor, Steve Rose. He’s such an asset to Muskogee, such a giving person and so into helping people — the poor. And there’s a lot of poor people in Muskogee. I look to him for advice since my dad died.”
WHAT’S THE MOST MEMORABLE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU SINCE YOU HAVE LIVED IN MUSKOGEE?
“The day I fell in love with Mickey — we were in high school.”
He said she was driving his gold Chevelle, and he was in the front seat and had two friends in the back. The console was full of bottle rockets that they were driving around shooting at people. He accidentally dropped a lit punk in the bottle rockets.
Mickey threw the car in park, the boys got out the windows. Mickey’s car door was locked. He said they finally got her out, but her back had burn marks on it.
He said they were stupid kids who didn’t know any better.
HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?
“The location is great — around four lakes. Tulsa International Airport is 35 minutes away. You can go anywhere in the Continental USA in two and a half hours or less.”

Meet Donnie Madewell

AGE: 54.
HOMETOWN: Muskogee.
CAREER: Salesman and owner of AT&T cell phone stores.
EDUCATION: 1972 Class of Muskogee High School, attended Northeastern State University.
FAMILY: Wife, Mickey; two sons, daughter and one grandchild.
CHURCH: First Assembly of God.
HOBBIES: Hunting and going to OU football games.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.