FAXON – A few years back, Don Armes decided he wanted to learn to play the guitar. So, he did. Deciding to do something and then doing it isn’t anything new for the man who has made many decisions through the years to do something - and then did it.
He’s written a few songs about people and places that are special to him but didn’t share any plans about moving to Nashville and seeking fortune and fame. In fact, it’s a little hard to see Armes living anywhere but southwest Oklahoma where the people and culture shaped him into the man he is today.
MOVING TO LAWTON
Armes was born in Midwest City, but moved to Lawton in 1973 with his mom and stepdad, Elaine and Paul Bennett. They had met while working in a cerebral palsy center in Norman and eventually moved their family to Lawton.
The Bennett’s were drug and alcohol counselors, which Armes said wasn’t totally accepted at the time, but they wanted to help people. They worked with Vietnam Veterans suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and drug and alcoholic abuse.
Human Ecology Learning Program (HELP) was the name of his parent’s business and each year they did an annual fundraiser at Halloween called “The Witch’s Castle.” For several years each October the HELP Center was transformed into a haunted house and helped fund programs through the year.
Armes and his buddies would dress up as vampires or the chainsaw massacre guy or other scary characters and frighten the guests. “It had the black lights, the strobe lights and the scary music piped through the house and we would run around and scare people,” Armes said. “Mom saved all those LP albums.”
SOLID WORK ETHIC
By that time though, Armes already had jobs on his own. “I figured out early that if I wanted anything, I was going to have to work for it,” he said. So, he did.
One of his first paying jobs was at an ice dock for $1 per hour. “I would ride my bike after school from MacArthur Park to Lee Blvd. We would take those 300-lb cakes of ice and score them down to 20-lb blocks and then feed them into the crusher for the 10- and 20-lb bags.
Then we would wait on the cars, as customers came through,” Armes said. “Since it would be dark after work, my parents would pick me up.” He was already interested in FFA (Future Farmers of America) as a young teenager and his days consisted of going to school, feeding hogs and working.
“I was able to buy my first pickup truck for $200, but then the first thing I had to do was learn to be a mechanic.”
Armes didn’t shy away from the tough jobs. He landed a summer job for $3 per hour as a “mud boy” for a bricklaying company, keeping the boards stocked for the bricklayers. He also hauled hay in the summers for three or four cents a bale. He could throw enough bales to make about $300 a week.
“I had good, solid, hardworking men for role models,” Armes said. “They were rugged guys that didn’t allow any whining. It was, ‘Get to work. You’ve got a job to do.”
So, he did.
EDUCATION
After graduating from MacArthur High School in 1979, Armes went to Cameron University and earned a double degree in Agricultural Education and Animal Science.
On June 16, 1984, he married his wife, Dede, and on July 1 was on the job as an Ag teacher in Eldorado. Dede was still in college at the time and attended Western Oklahoma State College in Altus and worked as a school student aide.
“That was a great community,” Armes said. “It was a good start for us as a young couple. That community raised us. They were almost like immediate family.” He taught there for four years and then in 1988 became the Lawton High Ag teacher.
OVERLAPS
Armes looks back on his working life and describes it as a series of overlaps. He has always had a main job and then a few side jobs (which he calls side hustles) because he says he likes to eat.
His side hustles provided extra money to help his family, which had grown to include two girls, and sometimes led to another main job. He’s never had just one job.
“One year as an Ag teacher I used our tax refund to go to Auctioneer School. So, my main job was teaching but my side hustle was as an auctioneer,” he said.
Auctioneering is still a side hustle for Armes all these years later. He tries to give back by also taking on benefit auctions. He said he’s probably done as many free ones as those he has been paid to work.
Other side jobs have included taking care of a herd of registered cattle and grooming show calves. He works cattle on horseback but just shrugs when asked if he considers himself a cowboy. “It’s just a way of life,” he said. “I will always have cattle around me.”
ON THE AIR
One of Armes’ side hustles landed him on KLAW 101 radio in 1995 as the farm broadcaster. He started out doing some voice work and reading an agriculture news script. It wasn’t long until he became known as “Don Armes - Your Voice for Agriculture in southwest Oklahoma.”
He would get up at about 3:30 a.m. every day, head to the radio station then on to his teaching job and then on to any auctions he might have lined up.
Armes worked at Southwest Auto Auction for $100 every Monday night for 10 years. He also worked at the OKC West Livestock auction. It was just something he needed to do. So, he did.
USING HIS VOICE AND PLATFORM
There are things down the road that Armes is proud of - well, not necessarily “things” as much as being able to fight for and help “real people.”
“One of my proudest moments was being able to fight for the school farm in Lawton,” Armes said. “In 1944, Robert S. Kerr designated an area of land near the corner of Lee Blvd. and Sheridan Rd. as a fairgrounds and school farm.”
During the years Armes was on the air, talk started with the Lawton Public Schools board about selling the school farm. “I had a voice and I wasn’t afraid to use it. I used the platform to reach people and influence them to call the LPS board members.” The school farm is still there today.
TELEVISION AND BEYOND
Local radio led to the local television station, which Armes enjoyed and always used a “Thought for the Day” to sign off his program. “I would just say, ‘Here’s something to think about as you go down the road ... and give them a thought or quote. It became very popular,” Armes said.
The hardworking southwest Oklahoma man had become noticed himself. He and his wife Dede were hired as a team to open a new branch of what became Liberty National Bank in Cache. He served as Vice-President for the bank for three years. And then, former Oklahoma State Auditor Gary Jones began recruiting Armes for the legislature.
“I really didn’t want it,” Armes said. “But I was told, ‘You care about rural Oklahoma. That’s who you are. You may not need them, but they need you.’” So, he ran for office.
Armes was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives to serve District 63 in 2002. Twelve years later, he termed out.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Just because he takes time to write some songs and play the guitar doesn’t mean Armes has slipped off into retirement. He still has the main job as a lobbyist, and his side hustles - auctioneering and ranching.
And he still cares about people - which may have been instilled by his parents as a young man - and still enjoys helping when he can. So, he does.
His favorite quote sums it all up. It came from a matchbook cover and reads, “Treat people right and the rest will take care of itself.”