The Craddock Brothers Build On Their Father’s Foundation

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Speaker 1: This is Leigh Habibe, and this is Our American Stories. And today we hear from Jeff Katz. He’s a radio host in Richmond, Virginia, and he’s also a columnist for the Boston Herald. And here he shares his deeply personal story about his teenage daughter, Julia, who has what doctors call global developmental delays and disabilities. And all of that means is that she functions physically and mentally at the level of a toddler. Here’s Jeff reading a note that he wrote to his daughter.

Dear Julia, I’m writing you this note on March seventh, twenty eighteen. Today is the day that you turn fifteen years old. It’s an interesting day for me and for Mom, but it’s another day for you. You’re not like other kids, my sweet. You’ve never made a big deal of your birthday. You’ve never asked us for any type of a special gift, not for your birthday, not for Hanukkah, not for Christmas. You’ve treated each and every day in the same way. Mom will wake you up, and you’ll have a smile on your face when you see her. She’ll play some of your music, and you’ll smile even more. You may laugh or giggle or squeal, but there will not be any words. You won’t complain about having to go to school. You won’t be happy to hear that it is a snow day. You won’t celebrate the fact that today is fifteen years since you were born. Most fifteen-year-old girls would be thinking about clothing, college, or a car by fifteen. Many dads have already, we had to warn their daughters about some dopey boy. But today you’ll watch your favorite episode of Jack’s Big Music Show, enjoy your cereal, and be on the lookout for cookies wherever you could find them. Mom and I know that you will be with us as long as we’re alive, but we worry about what happens after we’re gone. You have two wonderful brothers, and I pray every day that we have raised them well enough to know that they will need to look after you. Someday you may be our middle child, but you’ll always be the baby, even as you get older according to the calendar. As Mom told me yesterday, you are timeless. You’ll always be my Pipsqueak, despite the fact that the years are flying by. No, we’re not exploring potential careers or making plans for your wedding. We’re still hoping that we’ll be able to help you move from diapers to the potties someday. You live today the same way you did when you were about eighteen months old. You don’t speak, and you only recognize a few words. But oh, the words that you know: kisses and cookies. No matter how filled up you are, there’s always room for a cookie or two. You don’t understand when I ask you how your day was, but you become laser-beam focused when you hear the crinkle of the wrapper on a package of something sweet. No matter how sweet that candy, it’s still eclipsed by your genuinely sweet smile. So many people live their lives asking for things, demanding things, accumulating things. Most people never take the time to stop and savor a piece of cake or breathe deeply to appreciate a gentle breeze like you do. I hear people in this world use horrible, insulting language to describe kids like you, and I want to shake them, yell at them. Some mock disabled kiddos like you, and I feel like crying. You don’t understand their words, but I do. Sometimes I really wish I did not. We never thought you would crawl, let alone walk, but you showed us. Your situation and challenges and disabilities have caused me to question my belief in God on some days and have served to strengthen it on others. You don’t speak, but somehow you are able to brighten my days and ways that I never imagined without a single solitary word. You’ve made me a better man and touched countless people. Hearing you cry ties my stomach into knots, but your giggle is truly the happiest sound that I have ever heard. I know you’ll never read this, nor would you understand this if I were to read it to you. So let me just say, “Kisses and cookies, Jewels, Boules.” I tell you today what I have told you on every March the seventh since two thousand, and, “Daddy loves you more than you will ever know.” And thank you for that reading.

Jeff, “You’ve made me a better man,” he wrote. “Your giggle is the happiest sound I’ve ever heard.” On, Julia is unexpectedly learning how to walk. Jeff told the Boston Herald that, quote, “It was one of the proudest days of my life, one of the happiest days of my life. But I also have to tell you it’s a terrifying situation because Julia is like a toddler. She has no real understanding of, oh, the stove is hot, or I could fall here or trip there. We’re a thrilled that she’s trying to explore on her own a little bit, and we’re terrified at the same time.” And this is true for all of us parents, but even more so for Jeff and his bride. Jeff has said that it’s tough to realize that he’ll never get to embarrass Julia by dancing with her at her wedding. But, quote, “she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” End quote. Last but not least, he said these words. Quote, “She’s never spoken a word, she’s never said a word to anybody, but she’s touched more people in her fifteen years on this earth than I ever have. Her joy is pure to me. She’s like the face of God. She’s the essence of good, and she shares her joy with everybody.” Jeff Katz’s story, his daughter Julius, here on Our American Stories.

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And we continue here on Our American Stories. And up next, we bring you Ben Craddock. He brings us the story of the gas station business his father, Ron Craddock, started right here in Mississippi. Ron started from pretty close to nothing, and he worked his way up from there. Here’s Ben to tell his family’s story.

My dad, Ron Craddock, was a. He came from nothing. One brother and two sisters, and they had a one-bedroom home, and so they slept on. He slept on the floor his whole life. Always wanted more from himself, and so he always had a drive in him to be better, not let his circumstances define him. He went through college, got his degree, went to Vietnam, did that for four years, came back and was trying to find a job, and so he met my mother. They got married, and my grandfather had a gas station, a Phillips 66, I believe. And so he told my dad, “Hey, you know, why don’t you try to get into the field business, and you know, it’s a good way to, you know, to make a life.” So my dad got on with Eximobile. He started off as a store manager, worked his way up to district manager, and then he was over the Southeastern territory. My brother, David, who’s seven years older, was born in Birmingham because we moved around a lot. So once I was born in Memphis, my dad and Mister Taft Little, they had the Southeastern Territory for Eximobile, and so they oversaw all the distributors, which, you know, run the independent distributors. There was two plants that were for sale of Mississippi at the time. This was, this was actually forty years ago, forty-one years ago, so it’s kind of a cool story. Actually, my dad, I love it when he tells me. So, he, they’re driving down to McComb, Mississippi, and they were discussing the plant that was for sale. There was like two stores in a, in a buck plant, and then in Tupelo, Mississippi, there was a thing, four stores and a bulk plant. And so back then that was a lot, you know, because you can make some money off fuel its. You know, I think you can make thirty cents off a gallon. Now it’s like negative ten, you know. So, as they’re driving to McComb, they both wanted that, that, that, that was the best deal, was the McComb distributorship. So, that said, they kept arguing over who gets this, who gets that? So my dad’s like, “Let’s just flip a coin, you know. Lands one heads, I get McComb. If at lands so tails, you know, whatever.” So they flipped a coin at lands on heads, and so Dad got McComb. So he couldn’t find anyone to back him far as a bank, because, you know, my dad didn’t have any—they didn’t have anything. I went to every bank in the state of Mississippi, and Trustmark was the only bank that would give my dad a chance. He grew it to about, my six, seven, eight stores when I was in high school. Once I got through with college at Ole Miss in two thousand. At the year two thousand, he had eleven stores. He had some restaurants. My dad was one of the first to, you know, now it’s, it’s common when you see a Subway, a Krystal, or some type of food inside a, inside of a gas station. Well, my dad did that thirty years ago. He had a Dairy Queen inside of a gas station. And people thought it was disgusting. They were like, “You don’t eat where you get your fuel.” And it was the years ago, and it didn’t work because it was way ahead of its time. But they did an article on my dad a while back, and I forgot, a convenience store news magazine, and they—that’s what they discussed. My dad has always been about five years ahead of things. He can just see things. He has a feel for the business, and I think that goes back to: he’s—he had to scrap for everything. You know, he had to teach himself account him because he didn’t trust an account. So, um, he still does our taxes. It’s seventy-eight years old. But, you know, saying all that, when we decided, my dad told me and my brother: “You know, I remember sitting in the Piccadilly in McComb, Mississippi, nineteen years ago, and my dad wanted to meet with my brother and I and he basically told us, ‘You know, things are changing. You got Kroger, Walmart. You have these big guys coming in. They’re selling fuel now. So, for us to make it, we either have to triple in size to have a chance, which means you’re a lot of debt, but it can pay off, or we can sell out and y’all can go do your own thing.'” So brother and I looked at each other and said, “We want to take it and grow it.” And so we took eleven stores, and as I sit here today, we’re at, I want to say, sixty-eight stores, and we run around twenty different restaurants, different type of restaurants. You know, we took an opportunity. We’ve worked our tails off. It’s been neat. With my dad: he’s the group that he came in with. There were probably five or six guys that he had close relationships with because they were distributors when he was just the district supervisor with Eximobile. And so, you know, everybody, my dad and his friends, they’re getting older. So they decided, “Yeah, you know, we’re ready to sell out.” “What we’re gonna ask Ron first because his boys have taken over and, uh, said they want to buy us out.” So, um, I’ll never forget. The first company is High Tower Oil out of Grenada, Mississippi. Mister George High Tower, he had eight stores, and so that was our first opportunity. And it was September the eleventh, two thousand one. So I’ll never forget that day: nine-eleven. We were getting into my dad’s car when the, when the planes hit the towers. And as we drove to Grenada to meet with Mister George, that’s all we discussed about. We were, I mean, it was kind of… we were in shock. But it’s one thing I’ll never forget, is that feeling. But I’ll never forget. I can’t remember the other companies that we bought during that time because, you know, it’s, it’s been kind of here and there throughout the years. But I’ll never forget that day. And that day actually changed our company also because, you know, we did—we doubled in size. So we’ve had opportunities because of my dad’s relationships with friends who buy their companies because their kids did not want to, you know, want anything to do with it. And then we actually recently bought Mister Little out, which was my dad’s partner and when they were district managers with Exxon. And, um, we bought Tupelo probably, I want to say, four years ago. So, and that was around twenty-one stores. You know, we, we, we’ve been blessed. We, uh, we had an opportunity from my dad with his work, his hard work, and we truly try to capitalize. We work our tails off, you know, getting up at four o’clock in the morning, and we just go until it’s done. That’s kind of how we were raised. My mom, she—my mother—is the glue to our family. She’s a true, I would say—everybody says—she’s always put together, you know, true Southern belle. She’s never smoked; she’s never drank. I’ve only heard her cuss twice, and that was at me. She is the most godly woman I’ve ever been around, ever met. She truly, truly is, uh, you know, just very special. So she, she really… Without my mom and her guidance, and without the opportunities of guy put in front of us, you know, we would not have the opportunities we have. Now, once I decided, once I got, you know, I graduated in December two thousand, got married in February. Right after we both graduated, we moved to Jackson, Mississippi, because my wife was going to, uh, dental school. So I knew we would be in Jackson for four years. I didn’t really know what would happen after that. So I don’t know if anybody listening to his work for family. Sometimes working for your family can be good; sometimes it can be destructive. My dad is a. He didn’t play around. He ran things with an iron fist. He was always fair. They respect him, but they fear him in a good way. He’s all business, and it took me a while to adjust to my dad. But his plan really was awesome. And we’re listening to Ben Craddock tell the story of his parents, and my goodness, what an influenced his father had. And he’s upbringing, too. He’s something at flour WoT much of his young life. We get up at four in the morning, and we go until we get it done. When we return, more of the Craddock family story, as told by Ben about his parents. Here are an Our American Stories. And we’re back with Our American Stories and the story of the Craddock family, who operate or service over seventy gas stations and sixteen fast-service restaurants in the state of Mississippi. Where we broadcast from. But run. Craddock worked his way up from nearly nothing, and he made his sons Ben and David do the same. Year’s Ben to tell us more.

Once I decided, once I got, you know, I graduated in December two thousand, got married in February. Right after we both graduated, we moved to Jackson, Mississippi, because my wife was going to dental school, so I knew we would be in Jackson for four years. I didn’t really know what would happen after that. So I don’t know if anybody listening to work for family. Sometimes working for your family can be good; sometimes it can be destructive. My dad is a. He didn’t play around. He ran things with an iron fist. He was always fair. They respect him, but they fear him in a good way. He’s all business, and it took me a while to adjust to my dad. But his plan really was awesome because when I look back on it, we have two separate companies. We have Craddock Oil Company, and we have a company called What a Combo, Inc. Well, the What a Combo company it runs all our food brands, has nothing to do with Craddock Oil Company. So he set those up just in case my brother and I wanted to come back, because he knew that he raised two kids to be CEOs, not VPs, and he raised two leaders, two followers. So the first two years of my working career, I worked for a guy named Lewis McGee, and Mister Lewis ran What a Combo, and they were awesome. You know. I start off an employee, a manager, a supervisor, and then about year two I was supervising all our Subways. And then my dad’s, “All right, time for a change.” “I want him to work for David, which is my brother.” So I transferred. I went to Craddock Oil to work over there. So I learned. I start off as employee, worked myself up to a manager. Then Katrina hit. As I was managing—well, I was managing guy a store in Jackson that we just bought—which was really an eye-opener. My brother put me over all our Jackson stores—which were, we had eight stores—and, you know, I went from employee to a manager to a supervisor. So as you can see in both patterns, I start off from the bottom as I worked way to the top, right? And so I learned how it felt to be an employee standing on your feet for eight, ten hours a day. I understood what it was to be a manager accountable for those employees. I learned what it was to be a supervisor that’s in charge of every manager plus the employees. I’m blessed to say that having worked for my dad, Mister Lewis McGee, my brother—so much went into it over about a ten-year span. And about, about twelve years ago, I got called into a meeting with my brother, my dad. And my dad said, “All right, What a Combo is yours.” And I said, “Okay, you know,” and I said, “Are you sure?” He’s like, “Yeah, man, you got it. Sure, run it.” And my brother is a lot like my dad. My brother said, “Look, you’ve earned it. You’ve basically cleaned… helped me. You’ve cleaned. You know.” We were a lot smaller back then, so when things were broken, we would have to fix it. We didn’t have the money to hire all these company different companies to fix things for us. And there were things in Jackson that I saw, I don’t even want to repeat on air, because they were disgusting. But we had to clean things up that no humans should ever see. But our people respected us because my brother and I would be in a restroom with gloves on, cleaning things off a wall. “Where you’re going, ‘How did, how did somebody write their name with that?’ You know what I mean? Like, people are—some people are just nasty.” So, but the respect you get because that manager was set and tell pen managers. So, you know, you, you don’t get respect. You got to earn respect. That’s how we did it. That’s how my dad would go back to the original beginning. My dad came from nothing, and he worked his way t.