By JARA REEDER, Photo Editor
Deb Jackson remembers the late-night phone call.
“My doctor calls me like at 12:35 p.m., and I see it’s him,” she said. “I say ‘Hey, Doc. What’s up?’ And he was kind of quiet. He goes on and says, ‘Deb, you do have cancer.’”
In May 2012, Deb Jackson got the news that she had breast cancer.
She went through radiation five times a week for nine weeks.
She would go to work and then drive to Enid, an hour away, for only 15 minutes of radiation therapy. Then, she would go back to work.
“I was shocked she still came into work every day because you know many people who go through something like that just don’t go back to work,” said Tonya Weinhoffer, a past coworker and assistant manager with Jackson at Walmart.
“She never missed a day, and even stayed late to cover the missed hours she was gone. I would never have done that, but that showed the type of person Deb is. She’s tough and just a workaholic.”
That November, Jackson had a double mastectomy and reconstruction.
Since then, she has been cancer free.
“I think the hardest part with cancer [is that] you’re telling me I’m not in charge right now,” Jackson said. “I’m not in charge of my life. I didn’t ask for this.”
FATHER’S BATTLE WITH CANCER
Six years after Jackson’s cancer, she watched her father, Dale Duggins, go through the same situation.
Her father first started complaining about his head hurting, but the family brushed off his concerns.
But one day, Duggins fell face-forward and hit his head. He was rushed to the hospital for an x-ray.
Doctors said Duggins had cancer eating away at his skull. And later, they discovered that he had stage four bone cancer.
The doctor said Duggins had three months to live. However, he died after only two weeks.
“A lot of people lose their parents at a young age or parents have to bury their children at a young age,” Jackson said. “But a part you is selfish, and you never want to see your loved ones go.”
Jackson was born in Cushing to Dale and Barbara Duggins. She has one older sister, Donna Littlefield-Inbody.
Jackson said her family moved often while she was growing up because of her father’s job as a coach and educator.
“We first lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where my dad was ‘Dean of Boys’ at Tulsa Central, which was a very tough school,” Jackson said.
The last place where Jackson and her family ended up was Cherokee in 1976.
In the last few years of high school, Jackson worked at a store called Alco.
She also worked at the Kountry Kitchen, the restaurant her parents owned. She helped manage and operate it.
BECOMING A RANGER
When high school was over in 1979, she went off to college just a few miles away at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at the time, so I was undecided,” she said.
Jackson lived in the South Hall dormitories. A few years ago, when Jackson’s daughter was preparing to attend college, the two took a tour of South Hall. Jackson said she was surprised that nothing had changed since she lived there.
While at Northwestern, Jackson was a cheerleader for the university’s football and basketball teams. She played flag football for an intramural team.
“We were called the coneheads,” Jackson said with a laugh. “I don’t know why that name. Back then, there was a popular movie that was out at the time that had the characters in it with coneheads. We obviously didn’t have coneheads or anything like that. It was just a popular name.”
Jackson left school in 1980 after studying basic courses and meeting her first husband. They had a son, Cody, and a daughter, Lindsay.
Six years later, Jackson met her second husband, Tim Jackson. They had one daughter, Morgan.
Jackson continued to work in retail and said she never thought about returning to school.
“The one thing that I’m thankful for during my time at Northwestern is when I took a speech class, because public speaking has always made me want to throw up,” Jackson said. “But when I’m around people I work with or have retailed with many times, then I’m fine. It’s just that moment getting up there to get started, but after that, things start going, and … you start to become relaxed.”
Throughout Jackson’s journey in retail business management, two places were a big part of her career, she said.
For 18 years, she was an assistant manager at Walmart. She was the head manager for six years.
During her time as head manager, Jackson went to several conference and leadership workshops in Oklahoma City, where all of the managers and assistant managers of every Walmart in Oklahoma met.
In early 2017, she left Walmart to avoid being transferred to another Walmart in another town. She didn’t want to leave her parents, who were ill.
FINDING A NEW CALLING
In the fall of 2017, she started working as the head manager at the Shepherds gas station and diner in Alva.
She helped start the business and still runs the store today.
“If it wasn’t for her [Jackson], I wouldn’t be where I was today,” said Marian Hanna, an assistant manager at Shepherds.
“I was a girl from Tennessee with no background in management, and she took me under her wing. … We all have our differences in managing style, but we know that and work well together.
“She’s a strong woman at work and at her home life and works hard at everything.”
“Whether going through cancer or whether it be a challenge at work, you know there’s always obstacles,” Jackson said.
“But I think it just depends how you can still come out on top. Life has many ways of beating us down, but it’s our responses that either suck us in or get us out.”
