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FEATURE FOR
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2003
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Jimmy Stambaugh - Second Chances |
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Jimmy (left) and brother Mark Stambaugh have come a
long way since they began operating Stambaugh Roofing
Company from their homes in 1984. Since then, Jimmy has
endured a debilitating auto accident and heart attack from
which he has come back strong, both physically and
spiritually.
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Jimmy Stambaugh staggers into
the offices of Stambaugh Roofing Company, his longhaired
dachshund, Buddy, trotting happily at his side, and looks
around with a dazed expression.
His fatigue is far from the result of a hard morning's
work: Jimmy has spent the last several mornings learning
anew the extent of childhood energy and enthusiasm during
Vacation Bible School at the First Cumberland Presbyterian
Church in McKenzie, where he serves as an elder.
Relaxing now in his office, stroking thoroughly-spoiled
Buddy atop his desk as he speaks, Jimmy reveals he wasn't
always active in his church; in fact, for fifteen years he
didn't set foot in the door.
Born on December 6, 1955 to Patty Sue and Donald Dean
Stambaugh, Jimmy says he "had a normal childhood growing
up in a rural town, playing baseball and football and
chasing women."
During his senior year of high school, while working at
the town theatre, he met a girl who caught his eye. Though
they were the same age, Paris native Cathey Sager was a
freshman at Bethel College, where she was studying
business.
By the time he graduated in 1974, Jimmy had lost his
father to a heart attack when he was just 18 years old,
and his father a young 45. Seven years later, he would
lose his mother, and last year, his brother Donald, five
years his senior, passed on as well.
Jimmy studied drafting at the vocational school in
McKenzie - "something my parents wanted," he says.
He and Cathey were married on April 24, 1976, the same
year little brother Mark graduated from high school.
Mark moved to Florida with friend George Vick and his
father where they started a roofing company, while Jimmy
went to work straightaway at ITT (International
Telecommunications Company) in Milan, working in his field
for about a year before deciding he just didn't like the
work that entailed revising drawings of telephone
substation equipment.
"I hated being inside," he confesses.
His next job at Long Lumber Company was the first in a
series of work environments that - over the next decade -
included Atlantic Homes in Henry, Emerson Electric in
Paris and the McKenzie Water Department.
In 1981, Jimmy began working full time at night for the
Fire Department while maintaining his day job at the Water
Department.
He was having dinner one evening with Mark, who had
returned from Florida several years earlier, when their
"gripe session" about working for somebody else turned
into a plan to go into the roofing business together as
equal partners.
"We had to borrow money from our grandmother to buy our
first piece of equipment," admits Jimmy. The business that
now operates from a spacious, custom-built office and
warehouse was first operated from home while the brothers
maintained their traditional employment.
"When we started this company in the summer of 1984 it was
strictly a shingle operation," says Jimmy, whose company
now serves only commercial and industrial roofing needs,
"We've done real well."
Two months into their business venture, he recalls with a
wry smile, "We had so much work I quit the City and scared
my wife to death." A month later, Mark quit his job at
Republic Builders as well, "and we never looked back,"
continues Jimmy, who remained with the Fire Department,
working nights and weekends, and is now Assistant Chief
with 22 years of service.
Soon, three ways of gauging the success of the business
become evident: one is in their contracts. "We do all the
Federal Express buildings at the Memphis airport," Jimmy
shares, "and we got the contract with Goodyear in Union
City." The company has almost completely re-roofed the
buildings at Goodyear's huge complex in a project that has
spanned seven years.
Another way to gauge the company's success is in their
giving. "We donate lots of money to school, and we always
donate to cancer drives, like the Fishing Rodeo at Carroll
Lake, and Carl Perkins. We give lots of money away,"
acknowledges Jimmy, who is President of the Advisory
Committee for the Carl Perkins Child Abuse Prevention
Center in Carroll County. The company's donations to the
new First Cumberland Presbyterian Church resulted in the
Family Life Center being dedicated to the men's uncle, L.H.
Cozart, who was an elder in the church when the boys were
growing up.
Then there are his toys.
"We have a condo at the lake," Jimmy says, illustrating
the material wealth success has wrought, "I have a
4-wheeler and a six-wheeler, a Harley-Davidson and two or
three boats. When you surpass all your childhood fantasies
it's hard to think of something else."
In work and play, the brothers have remained close.
"Neither one of us could have done it without the other
one," Jimmy declares. "Me and Mark do everything together;
we have two or three farms for duck hunting and deer
hunting, and rent the land out to Ben Surber who farms
most of it."
Among his hobbies of duck and deer hunting and fishing,
Jimmy's favorite is duck hunting, a pastime he has shared
with his son, Justin, the youngest of two Stambaugh
children. Now a junior at the University of Memphis,
Justin is a percussionist in the university's symphony
orchestra and marching band. Jimmy's oldest child, Stacey,
is a homemaker in McKenzie, married to Kerry Warman of
Gleason.
Referring to his passion for duck hunting, Jimmy says,
"That's my salvation," a comment that soon takes on double
meaning as conversation reveals that every close call in
his life has been associated with the hobby. As his story
unravels, it soon becomes evident that the material
benchmarks of success now take a backseat to the things
that really matter in life, including his relationship
with God, since one ill-fated duck hunting trip dealt him
a wake up call.
"I was in a wreck where I should have died and didn't," he
begins. "I figured somebody was trying to tell me
something."
It was New Year's Day at 4:45 in the morning in 1996 when
Jimmy was coasting along Stateline Road in Union City, a
long straight road on the border between Kentucky and
Tennessee.
"I was ten minutes from where I was going. There's one
curve in that road and that's where the deer was. The
moral of the story is - you're going to lose your vehicle
either way - hit the deer; the deer gives more."
Yet on this morning of mixed blessings, Jimmy missed the
deer and ran squarely into a tree. When he came to, he was
hanging upside down in the crushed cab, suspended by the
seatbelt he seldom wore, but had buckled three times that
morning.
"The only place in the truck where anyone could have lived
is where I was," Jimmy relates, "Justin was supposed to go
with me but he didn't feel like it when I got him up; if
he had been with me he would have died."
"At first I didn't think I was hurt," continues Jimmy, who
was all too familiar with accidents similar to his own as
a member of the McKenzie Fire Department Rescue Team.
Although he felt no pain initially, when he pressed the
seatbelt release button, he lost consciousness once more
as he collapsed into the cab. "The next time I woke up I
was half in and half out of the truck," he says, "the
radio was still playing and the lights were still on, and
I could smell gas, so I crawled out and got between some
oak trees."
By this time, friends he was to have met at the duck blind
discovered the accident and called the ambulance as well
as Mark. From the emergency room in Union City, Jimmy was
transported to the Baptist Hospital in Memphis where Mark
and Cathey were waiting for him.
"When I saw the X-ray I thought they would have to cut my
leg off; it was destroyed," tells Jimmy, relating that his
left knee, femur and hip socket were crushed.
He was in luck when a surgeon and team of doctors, who had
been to a party, were in the hospital that evening. "I
couldn't believe they put it all back together," Jimmy
says thankfully. "I have a titanium rod from my hip to my
knee... Every once in awhile when I go through a detector
at the airport it sets them off," he says mischievously.
Jimmy remained hospitalized for 18 days and endured three
operations in 1996 as a part of his "wake up call."
"He didn't kill me, He just slapped me a little bit," he
grins.
In 1997, Jimmy started back to church after his 15-year
absence. In late 1997 or the beginning of 1998, he went
back to work, a miraculous recovery for one who, Jimmy
relates, doctors said would never walk again without a
walker.
Jimmy has faced new challenges this year when another
January duck hunting trip preceded a heart attack that had
for three days been giving subtle hints of what was to
come.
"I'd had a few little chest pains, not enough to really
get my attention," says Jimmy, though his wan appearance
had not gone unnoticed by his son.
On January 15, Jimmy and Justin spent the day duck
hunting. "You look horrible," Justin had said, though
Jimmy noticed only mild cramping in his chest.
"I didn't have arm pain," he says, "I'd been having like
muscle cramps or indigestion. I was 47 years old; I didn't
think about a heart attack."
The two slogged through mud, pushing the boat and moving
decoys all day. "We were a good hour away from anyone out
there," Jimmy relates, "Then I come home, get relaxed,
take a shower and go to bed and almost die. I hadn't been
in bed five minutes when it felt like someone dropped an
anvil on my chest. I couldn't get up, couldn't holler,
couldn't talk, or catch my breath. Wouldn't nothing work;
I thought I was going to lie there and die."
Five or ten minutes passed before he managed to get out of
bed and walk into the living room where Justin leaped to
his feet, immediately aware that his ghost-white father
was in trouble.
From the emergency room at the McKenzie Hospital, Jimmy
went to the hospital in Jackson where surgeons operated
the following morning to install two stints. On February
25 another stint was installed to complete the procedure
to open arteries that were 95 and 97 percent blocked.
"I feel fortunate," says Jimmy, whose doctor assured him
his heart was healthier now than before the attack. "I've
almost quit smoking; I used to smoke two packs a day and
now I'm down to less than a pack a day."
He has also modified his eating habits, cutting out the
fried foods and fatty dishes that cause clogged arteries
and to combat the effects brought on by inactivity after
the attack. "The first two months I gained 35 pounds," he
admits, "All I did was sleep and eat. When you get 47
that's not a good combination. In a few more months I'll
be back to normal."
Aiding him in his new focus on healthy eating and fitness
is the aerobic videos that Cathey also takes part in. "We
try to walk but my leg gives out on me. I can walk a long
way, just not all at one time."
For the first 15 years of Jimmy and Cathey's marriage,
they didn't take a vacation. "We're making up for it,"
grins Jimmy, "Now we take three or four a year."
The couple has focused largely on the west, covering
almost every state west of the Mississippi River. Last
year's trip to see California's giant redwood trees was
among Jimmy's favorite adventures. "It was a childhood
dream," he says, still awed. "Until you stand beside them
you can't imagine how big they are. You can lie up in the
bark... the bark is 36" thick."
The two have also enjoyed cruises to British Columbia and
Vancouver and Cathey has ventured across the waters to
Europe. "She and Stacie went; I didn't care nothing about
going overseas," he says.
"I live a better life than I ever thought I'd live," Jimmy
declares, "I grew up thinking I'd work in a factory all my
life. If I had to tell anybody anything it would be to not
give up on your dreams, because anything you dream you can
achieve; it just takes hard work and dedication. Me and
Mark are perfect examples. Me and my brother's come a long
way since we started."
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2003
Feature
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2002
Feature
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2001
Feature
Archives: |
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Phone (731) 352-3323 or
Fax (731) 352-3322
washburn@mckenziebanner.com
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