Roy Exum
Excuse me for my silly grin, but it's real. This morning I will represent my late grandfather as he is inducted posthumously into the Central High Hall of Fame. To some that might seem like a yawner, but to me it is a very big deal. I truly believe that much of what Roy McDonald accomplished in his life was born within the walls of that Grand Cathedral of Learning that once was located on Dodds Avenue.
He used to boast that he had a marvelous upbringing and he did indeed.
When he was two years old he already had a McGuffey Reader in his hand and became so proficient that by the time he was five he stood before an assembly at St. Elmo Elementary and read Luke 2 to the whole school. Yes, this was back in 1906 when the Bible went to school every day because it was the only book some kids had. It taught a lot to read, too, among other lessons.
But as I think about his life, I believe it can be argued that Central High School was pivotal. He used to laugh that it was at Central he was taught a lot of four-letter words: l-o-v-e, h-e-l-p, w-o-r-k and so forth by the stunning faculty they had, even back then. In his top desk drawer was a medal he won in a track meet for Central about the time of World War I.
When he graduated from high school he went to Georgia Tech but, during his second year, Poppa Frank had to declare bankruptcy and his son had little choice – he came home to help run the grocery store and get the family back on its feet. It didn’t take long and, at the age of 22, Roy McDonald opened his own grocery store in the 400 block of Market Street.
Here’s my point? Where do you reckon he got the drive, the knowledge, the dream and the inspiration to do that? It’s a given that he came from a great family setting and it’s also pretty obvious he was smarter than a tree full of owls, but in the many years we talked, particularly around midnight on Saturdays waiting for the final edition to roll off the presses, he confided a lot about his wins and losses in life and, I’m as honest as I can be, the Central years molded so much of what he would later accomplish.
The Depression of ’29 was the singular incident in his life that he struggled with the most. By then he had seven or eight grocery stores and he forgot about a profit. He told me that he kept a sharp pencil on the books, making sure he wouldn’t slip, but he gave away tons of food on the hush, telling his managers to get the customer to meet them ‘round back' to make certain they weren’t embarrassed if their friends saw them taking a handout.
The Depression horrified him because he saw real poverty up close. There was an incident at some point – I never got the skinny – where Erlanger refused to do a surgery on a guy who later died a painful death, all because he didn’t have the money. Soon my grandfather was on the Erlanger board and devised a pre-pay plan that was good for the public and great for Erlanger, because the hospital struggled mightily after the economic crash.
He’d spend Sunday afternoons studying Erlanger’s books and somehow heard about this thing called Blue Cross. As a longtime chairman of the board, he could see that in the near future the Average Joe wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of health care. So he went to Cuba on his own nickel and purchased the charter for the state of Tennessee with his own check. He was the chairman of the board for the next 42 years and you know the rest of the story. You also know why the state headquarters never left the Scenic City.
At one time he owned 70 grocery stores, had his own dairy operation and had just bought a fledgling newspaper. But every Sunday afternoon belonged to Erlanger and Blue Cross, figuring out how to make things work, and it’s a family secret, but the kid from Central High never took as much as a dime from either the hospital or Blue Cross-Blue Shield. I’ll promise, and there are only two places that service to others of such a magnitude comes from. One is h-e-l-p and w-o-r-k and l-o-v-e. The other is where you’ll find Luke 2.
My grandfather is in a lot of halls of fame, from raising Jersey cows to insurance (he never dreamed what Blue Cross would turn out to be for so many) to grocery stores and to newspapers. He’s been honored in every way you can imagine and, in truth, he was humbled by it. One of his best ploys was this: “Give all the credit to other people and you can achieve anything.”
But the Central High Hall of Fame is altogether a different thing. It’s the only diploma he ever had, outside of those honorary things.
Face it: Central High is where he learned to set so many different fires that today warm so many people. He died in 1990 so I’d appreciate it if the next one of us who goes to heaven will tell him about it. He’ll wear a grin as silly as mine.
royexum@aol.com