Bobby Mitchell and Corey Mitchell

[00:02] BOBBY MITCHELL: My name is Bobby Mitchell I'm 45 years of age. Today's date. Monday, April 25, 2022. Location, the Ozarks in Missouri. Name of my interview partner Corey Mitchell He is my cousin.

[00:22] COREY MITCHELL: My name is Corey Mitchell Age 43. Monday, April 2522. Location, those arcs, Missouri. The name of our interview partner is Bobby Mitchell and he is my cousin.

[00:41] BOBBY MITCHELL: Okay. Hey, Corey So when you look back at what you say, he's 43 years old.

[00:51] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah.

[00:52] BOBBY MITCHELL: So we've been hanging out for 43 years. When you look back, what is probably the one of your favorite memories of me when we were young?

[01:07] COREY MITCHELL: All time favorite memory. We were gathering cows for Bubba Dean. He wanted to drive the truck that morning as we were gathering cows in the dark. And I told you to stay against the fence or we'd high center the truck by a pond. And sure enough, we need to get close enough to the fence. And yas entered the truck and I ended up walking the cows up to the barn, started milking while he was trying to get the truck out of old Bubba Dean showed up later on and had the tractor. He wanted to know what happened to the keys. And you said you took them because you didn't want the truck stolen.

[01:59] BOBBY MITCHELL: In the middle of a field on 100 something acres, huh?

[02:04] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah. That was one good memory.

[02:07] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, I remember that now. I mean, so the truck didn't get stolen, needless to say.

[02:13] COREY MITCHELL: Amen to that.

[02:14] BOBBY MITCHELL: We couldn't get it out when we intended to because I was who knows where whenever I got that call. Let's see. Memories.

[02:23] COREY MITCHELL: How about you? What's your best memory?

[02:27] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, that brings up a memory there. I forgot. I forgot about that one. I don't. I don't have a certain memory. I do just remember growing up, we'd, you know, your mom would come over, dad would bring us over to your house and just running around. I know. I remember, like, one thing that always set in my mind was when we would go to Corey's house. So he was a. His mom was a single mom raising, what, three boys. And it was a lot of fun because, I mean, she was the type of person where she'd let us be boysenheid and we just throw all our clothes off and just run around being boys. Like, it was just good times. Anytime I got to go over to their house, they had Nintendo. They had for single mom, they had fancy stuff. Like, didn't you have a Nintendo growing up? Or was I thinking, is that brand?

[03:23] COREY MITCHELL: No. I mean, we had Nintendo's ataris. And growing up throughout the. Being kids, I remember going over there.

[03:31] BOBBY MITCHELL: And that's the first thing I would look. I'll be like, where's that Nintendo?

[03:33] COREY MITCHELL: Athenae.

[03:36] BOBBY MITCHELL: So a couple of fond memories is when we were young, we'd go to Grandpa's farm, of course, for a family get together. And back then, like these days, they fill eggs and there's candy in them, but we didn't have that option. When we were young, we colored eggs and hid hard boiled eggs all over the place. But afterwards was one of my favorite parts. You know, there was, there was the egg war, and we used to bean each other with them, like we would just after we had gathered them all. That's how much ammo you had. And we would have an egg fight.

[04:11] COREY MITCHELL: Instead of snowball fights. It's egg fight.

[04:14] BOBBY MITCHELL: It was good times. Well, yeah, we did a lot of milking down there on Grandpa's farm. Another time we got, we become teenagers and we decided we was going to ride bulls.

[04:23] COREY MITCHELL: Oh, boy.

[04:24] BOBBY MITCHELL: So, yeah, we, we'd run around these little towns and jump on bulls and, you know, we'd get beat up pretty good. But that was good memories, though.

[04:34] COREY MITCHELL: I mean, we rode bulls for a couple, two or three years and had some fun. Little brother, my middle brother, he got into it pretty good. So.

[04:46] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, yeah, he's actually in magazines and, like, he was more built for it than we were. He was wiry and, like, he wanted to be like big brother and big cousin. He's always looked up to us and, man, he, he did good. Yeah, Dustin did really good riding bulls.

[05:04] COREY MITCHELL: He was 100 pounds where we were. 200 pound boys. Yeah, I remember. I mean, just growing up, we had, going to Grandma Compton's for Thanksgiving and Christmas and really having all our family getting together for holidays where, I mean, nowadays we know family's all moved away and gone. Passed away.

[05:32] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah.

[05:33] COREY MITCHELL: I don't know how to get all that back anymore, but, yeah, definitely Thanksgiving and Christmas at great grandma's and everybody sitting down and there was a kids table.

[05:45] BOBBY MITCHELL: We got to sit at that until we got up. The old kids table. Table.

[05:50] COREY MITCHELL: Yep. Let's see here. And then we had, well, when you guys lived in Marshfield and I got to come live with you guys for a little bit my junior. No, freshman year. Yeah, I was only there for three or three months before, before we kept me out of school.

[06:17] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah. And I went to Fordland for a little bit there, too. Like, I remember I was working at the shoney's with your mom. She got me a job, so I moved up to Fordland and she was a manager up there, and so I'd go up there, and then school season started, and they had the fall balls while I stayed over there, Cory. So I could play baseball over there in Fordland. And I just went over there. Like, I moved back to Marshfield after the fall ball season was over with, and then. But, yeah, we got to live together a few times.

[06:52] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah, growing up, then even after we got old enough and out of school, still lived together at my mom's.

[06:59] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah. So when I turned 18, I was still working at the shoney's there in Branson, and I. So I moved in with his mom and him and the three boys, and.

[07:11] COREY MITCHELL: I think Brent was there with us.

[07:14] BOBBY MITCHELL: Brent was living there.

[07:16] COREY MITCHELL: We had a whole family, and we.

[07:19] BOBBY MITCHELL: All worked at Shoney's for a while there, it seemed like. And, yeah, it was a good time growing up over there, like, so I was 18. You'd have been 1617.

[07:29] COREY MITCHELL: Yep.

[07:30] BOBBY MITCHELL: And we'd, uh. We'd live there and did what 18 year old guys did. We rode four wheelers and whatever.

[07:40] COREY MITCHELL: We get away without getting into too much trouble.

[07:42] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, that's real. We won't get into the details on that. Um, I guess we can, you know, and then. And then years went by, and I remember I was managing a shoney's and ozark by that. So. So fast forward five years, and Corey I had a water leak in a bathroom, and I called him up, and he said he could fix it. All the bids were, like, $2,400, and he's like, well, I'll do it for 16. And I'm like, okay, come on and do this. And he went in there, and he did it in, like, 4 hours. And I'm like, man, you make that much money in 4 hours? I thought I was doing good, you know, managing the shoney's, and he goes, yeah. And he goes, and I'm starting my own business, and if you want to come work with me on your days off, you can. And I started working with him, and, oh, man. He's like, well, if you want to become a partner, I'd make you a partner in this. And, you know, you'd be making double what you're making to Shoney's. That's. We took off. I put in my two weeks notice, and, yeah, we did that for a while, and then I. In time, we kind of broke off, and then each had our own business for a while. Corey Mitchell's always, man, he can walk anywhere and make money. He knows something grandpa taught us is taught. Corey Mitchell How to run a business, for sure. You want to speak into that some, Cory?

[09:17] COREY MITCHELL: Well, our grandpa and our great uncle owned businesses their whole lives and farms, and they trained us boys how to do the drywall business that they'd been in all their lives. And I just. It caught my interest, and I'd seen what they could do, and I wanted to be that guy. Uh, and our whole family does it all my cousins, Bobby Brent, uncles, brothers, our grandpas, great uncles. Yeah, Bobby's dad. I even think my mom did it back when she was a little younger.

[10:06] BOBBY MITCHELL: So we was raised. We was raised on job sites. Like, we were walking stilts when we were six, seven years old enough to walk. I know my kids started walking stilts at about eight years old.

[10:18] COREY MITCHELL: And, I mean, we were spotting nails when we were probably 8910 years old for our families. So, yeah, we grew up working not only as on the dairy farms for our grandpas and uncles, but also within the companies they built a and pretty much handed down to us with a lot of skills and knowledge. So, yeah, I'm still doing that today. Not really drywalling, but remodeling. And somebody has a problem, they call me, and I figure out a way to fix things.

[10:58] BOBBY MITCHELL: That means I call him quite a.

[10:59] COREY MITCHELL: Bit working at a shelter, and I call Bobby because he's got a lot of good people at the shelter. They think it's not. Society thinks the shelter is a bad place, but, man, there is a lot of good people in there. They just need somebody to believe in them and give them a hand.

[11:23] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah. And Cory gives these guys opportunities to go out there straight from a shelter when they're down in their luck. And Corey calls me up and says, hey, can you get me two to up to four guys, or however many? And, you know, they're there. We've got probably 150 people at the shelter right now. So let's go ahead, Corey and talk about. Go ahead.

[11:50] COREY MITCHELL: I say, can you tell me about the person who has been kindest to you in your life, man?

[11:59] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, I'll tell you who's been pretty kind to me. Corey Mitchell of course. But we'll get into that here in a minute. My daughter. So let's go back to where. How I become a chaplain at the victory shelter for men. So about 2015, I guess we'll call her my wife. We was together 20 years. Left me with, and her and the kids left me. My mom and sister had recently died, and I was just going through a lot. Of course, I was in addiction, drugs and alcohol, both and so I finally, I got in this third DWI, and they locked me up for 120 days. I had a really nice house, car, truck, everything. The bank took it all. When I got out of, out of jail, I had practically nothing, which half of that was gone before I even lost the house. I remember when I went up to the courtroom, they'd already took the truck and the car. And then, like, the house was just, it was just a matter of time. And so I went to jail. I found myself homeless when I got out. So I checked into the shelter. Three days. Three days in the shelter. I got kicked out for drinking. So that was for about four years. I was on the streets. I would have even asked Corey for help then. But I tell you what, Corey he would have helped me, but he had wanted me to help myself. So I never really did have back then the courage to be like, hey, Corey will you help me? Because I know and it's the right thing to do. Tough love, I found out, changed my life. I know his mom tried helping me in that time, too, but I was such a wreck. I had to go through some trials and tribulations. So I found myself back at the shelter, 2019, still homeless. And I went through our restoration program. That's when I finally did call Corey He's like, he seen me changing. Our restoration program's a one year to year and a half long program. And I've been in programs and stuff, but this one was different. Like, they was going to heal me through Christ. And I'm just like, I've not tried that, you know? And so I get in this program, and about three months goes by and I call Corey and he's like, well, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to get back in the drywall. I was going to get my own drywall business going again. He goes, no, you don't want to do that. Tell me why I don't want to do that. Corey Mitchell

[14:40] COREY MITCHELL: Oh, the nightmares of homeowners and just no money in it anymore. I've given up drywall since our earlier days. I'm more into roofing now. And so everybody asked me why I gave up drywall since I was had such a massive company to go into roofing. My number one question is, do you and your wife ever get on that roof? And they're like, no, we're not getting up there. We're afraid of heights. We don't want to fall. I said, that's the reason I don't want to get in the roof. That's the reason I like roofing.

[15:23] BOBBY MITCHELL: Nobody else to do it, right?

[15:25] COREY MITCHELL: No one else. No.

[15:26] BOBBY MITCHELL: You're going to do it theirself.

[15:27] COREY MITCHELL: Yep. So, yeah, but him and he had a group of buddies that he was hanging out with at the mission through the program. And pretty much, I had a mowing business at the time, too. And pretty much every Saturday, I'd grab him and two of our buddies or his, and they became my friends. Since then, we're all really close. We'd go mowing every weekend.

[16:02] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, it made it, and it was.

[16:04] COREY MITCHELL: A good time, and, yeah, it was just close times.

[16:09] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, we got to get to know each other. Cory was once again giving opportunities to guys who was in a shelter. Didn't have a dime to our name. I mean, we barely had a few changes of closed, but it was an opportunity for us to go out and just showed his heart, too. He seen the Lord working in our lives, you know, I look back at me and Cory. Neither of us knew at this time. Still, he knew I didn't need to do drywalling, but we didn't know. God had this special calling on my life, and I was going to end up being a chaplain over at the victory mission, and who knows where this is going to take me? I'm grateful because Corey did give me good advice. He's just like, no, don't get in the drywall. Cause I know that that's just all. That's what I knew.

[16:54] COREY MITCHELL: And drywall lead you in a bad direction.

[16:58] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yep. And I look back, and who knows which direction I would have turned. We both know what direction it would have ended up in. I probably wouldn't even finish the program if I'd have went through that. If I'd went through that route. Just because of the in construction, there's just not. You don't see them with their bibles open every day. Like, what I get to do every day now working in ministry, it's mostly.

[17:24] COREY MITCHELL: Drugs and alcohol, and so, yeah, the construction is a rough way to go nowadays, but, I mean, they're not all that bad, but drywalling is probably the worst.

[17:40] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, now I've got a corner office there, and I'm so glad I'm not underneath a piece of sheetrock or walking stilts that are four foot tall. So God truly blessed me with just following God's lead instead of my direction. What I knew and what I wanted to do. Finally, they had an opening at the shelter for front desk, and I was just like, well, man, I didn't have a license at this time, I mean, I was like, man, I can't beat that. Like, there's right there. Work is literally three rooms away, and.

[18:20] COREY MITCHELL: God will give us what we need.

[18:21] BOBBY MITCHELL: I mean, yeah, God, he really does. He definitely provides. So we'll fast forward to I graduate the program. Corey Mitchell also, what he didn't mention, he runs, like, who knows how many trailer parks. How many trailer parks you run now?

[18:37] COREY MITCHELL: I've got eight. Eight mobile home parks throughout the state of Missouri.

[18:42] BOBBY MITCHELL: And he's like, you know what? If you want to grab a graduate or two, we can. I can set you guys up with, with something affordable. You'd be right here by me. You can help me around the trailer park if that's what your heart desires. He even offered me a manager job at a trailer park on my side time. But at this time, still, at this moment, when I'm not at work, I'm at church.

[19:12] COREY MITCHELL: That's where he needs to be.

[19:14] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah, it's just God's had this calling on my life in ministry, and it's getting bigger and bigger. I don't know if I've told you, Corey Mitchell but I'm getting ready to become a local minister.

[19:25] COREY MITCHELL: You did? You just said that when we all went out on our last couples date, which I was very pleased to hear you going for that.

[19:37] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, then I was looking into the classes and I met with the pastor at the. Well, she showed me the classes, and since then, I've decided to go ahead and go to the Bible college that they have and get a. What's that called? A bachelor's degree in christian ministry. So little did I know, like, God was going to keep pushing me and calling me into deeper and deeper into ministry. So that's the next deals I'm signed up for that they're going to appoint me local minister next month. I meet with the board here in a couple weeks. So I'm really excited about this next season of my life.

[20:19] COREY MITCHELL: Sweet. I'm just glad to see you continuing following God's path. And I know you've been in and out of a few relationships and you've not veered from God's path even on that. No, that's been a really. That would be a tough one for me, and it has always been a tough one for me. But I know for you, in the last three years, even in relationships, you still stayed true and followed God's path and purity and.

[20:51] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yep.

[20:52] COREY MITCHELL: So I'm very, it's even kind of made me look at my life so.

[20:59] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, honestly, that was, that was one of my truest tests that I had. Just graduating a program is, you know, I was with a woman for a year and she broke up with me. And we literally had the rings bought and getting ready to go to the, the counseling through the church. And I know close family was like, they knew the old Bobby and the direction I was headed, but God is what you can say. He totally, he took over. Like, instead of turning back to drugs and alcohol, I mean, I just buckled down and turned to the Bible and to my godly leadership and friends and, you know, it was a true test that people got to see Bobby do instead of turning back to the drugs and alcohol. And so even as Christians, we're going to have, we're going to have bad days, we're going to have bad experiences. But the best part about it is that just as a Christian, it just brings us closer to God. And this Sunday, it just reminds me of this last Sunday. Pastor Dylan Robinson came and preached at our church. And he said, he said, temptation is not a sin, but it is an opportunity to overcome sin and to defeat sin. So that was really, really big. And I looked back. I've seen myself doing that. So it's good.

[22:33] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah. Temptation is out there every day. Who has made the biggest impact on your life? And what's one thing that they taught you? Who do you think youre, you've hard the biggest impact on so far? You've had the biggest impact on so far?

[23:02] BOBBY MITCHELL: Well, I can't, I'd be like saying to Corey Mitchell dude, you gave me second chance, you know, being that you've, that's why I have you in this interview with me, because, man, where would I be without, you know, I, once again, I might have moved somewhere and been under a temptation, and I wasn't all the way ready, you know, with the temptations in this world. And you gave me a safe place to go. And like I said, them weekends, whenever I was in the shelter, those were huge because that gave me not only an opportunity to hang out with someone that I loved, but it put money in my pocket and it just, you know, I'll forever be grateful for what you have done in my life, Corey Mitchell

[23:54] COREY MITCHELL: And you've changed my life. And growing up, you know, you and Blake and Brent and Dusty and all you guys have been down that one path, and I've never went down that path.

[24:19] BOBBY MITCHELL: It's been tough. It was tough to see you watch us go through a path where we've all been homeless, we've all struggled with drugs and alcohol. You know, the good thing is Corey is slowly we're all straightening up. Not all of us, but I mean, we're getting there. We're getting there.

[24:44] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah. Now watching Bubba Dean with Ricky and mom with Dusty and I, definitely, the tough love had to be there. Not that I enjoyed it, but hopefully it's going to turn us all into better.

[25:07] BOBBY MITCHELL: So I did better, man. I did a little thing the other day with, interview with and they was asking, you know, what changed, what made me change? And it was that tough love. If people was going to keep enabling me, I was always going to go back to what was right in front of me until I was cut off. Family and friends totally had cut me off and I had to live in my consequences. I wasn't gonna. I wasn't gonna change. So it was that tough love that really changed my life because I didn't have somewhere to stay. I didn't have, I had, I had to put on my big boy pants and I had to do this all on my own. I had like, that's where I found goddess is. Whenever it was just me wallering my own sorrows, whether it was sitting in a jail cell or sitting in a shelter bed, I had to. I finally, you know, God's like, hey, man, you're not alone. And he's like, hey, I've got a purpose for you. But I had to literally live in God's commands. I couldn't do it my way no more.

[26:26] COREY MITCHELL: You're right. Yeah. I knew there was, you had dreams. I know when you started working at the desk and then you wanted to move up and work with e man and all that, and you, you had more dreams working in the mission. And I remember you coming to me and you were looking at possibly going another route job wise and just telling you just to hold on, hang on. The position will be there for you. There was a couple times you were a little upset with the mission.

[26:59] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah.

[27:00] COREY MITCHELL: And I mean, that's with any job we have just sticking out, sticking through it. I had those same frustrations and aggravations in the fire service. So.

[27:14] BOBBY MITCHELL: Corey Mitchell was also a firemande, like a captain. This guy's lived a life.

[27:20] COREY MITCHELL: I've been a career firefighter, captain training officer for the state of Missouri. So. But I mean, it comes with political aspects of life. So.

[27:36] BOBBY MITCHELL: So does, so does my job, but it's the, it's where the politics are. Just follow goddess. Right.

[27:45] COREY MITCHELL: You just gotta let God have it and not stress about it. That's what some people don't like about me because. Go ahead, Corey Mitchell can you tell me about one of your most difficult memories?

[28:11] BOBBY MITCHELL: So this is a memory. So I lost. So I lost my mom, dad and my sister within three years. And I was a big wreck. And this is a regret. But like I said with God, I've overcome it. But what happened was I was a total wreck. And mom and my sister had died. And my dad had finally died. And I was. So I want to say I was upset, and it was just like. And I was, keep in mind, a total wreck. I was on drugs, I was on alcohol. And I didn't go to my dad's funeral. And, you know, that's something God's like, hey, you're gonna. It's okay, because he's staring down on you super proud now. And God comforts me there. But that was a tough, tough moment in my life. Just skipping that funeral that day. It was pretty tough. What about you, Cory? What's one of your worst memories?

[29:16] COREY MITCHELL: Well, I. It's kind of funny and bad, but on a Saturday night, Grandpa was in the nursing home. Which I'd put him in a nursing home for a couple, two or three weeks. While I was finished building a home beside mine for him to move into. And I had a lady at the nursing home that took care of grandpa, gave him sweets and done things for him. I knew people. And she wasn't working that night. It was a Saturday night. And my grandpa, he was very agitated and wanted some candy. And me and my uncle Dean, we were gonna go up and see him on Sunday. Take him out to breakfast and stuff. And I told him that I wasn't coming up Saturday night. To get him, give him candy. And he got mad. He got upset. And so Sunday morning. So Saturday night, me and him got in a fight. So Sunday, the morning, I didn't go to breakfast with my uncle. And I think Monday or Tuesday, he passed away.

[30:39] BOBBY MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, you know what? I look back, and the good thing is, as we know, grandpa's in heaven. He did give his life to Jesus. There is a happy story. Because he didn't always explain to us that he believed. But we do know that, you know, in them circumstances. He gave his life to Jesus. And he's smiling down upon us, especially right now. Corey Mitchell going, man, look at my boys. You know? And so that's all I can think about is how your mom's passed, my parents passed, grandparents are all passed. But they're looking down.

[31:22] COREY MITCHELL: Oh, yeah.

[31:23] BOBBY MITCHELL: And they're going, look, look at our boys right now, sitting in a ministry building doing a story.

[31:28] COREY MITCHELL: No, now, we're the elders.

[31:30] BOBBY MITCHELL: We are. We are the elders. Aren't.

[31:33] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah. Forties.

[31:34] BOBBY MITCHELL: I got grandkids now. Oh, my goodness.

[31:37] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah. I was gonna say.

[31:39] BOBBY MITCHELL: All right, Corey 1 minute. So.

[31:54] COREY MITCHELL: Do you have any regrets?

[31:57] BOBBY MITCHELL: You know, through Christ now, like, all the regrets I've ever had, I grew from. And so, of course there's regrets, but I choose to move forward in life, and I try not to live off my regrets.

[32:14] COREY MITCHELL: Yeah, we definitely can't live on regrets, that's for sure. They're in our past, their memories, and we've got to live with them. And God's leading us in better direction nowadays.

[32:26] BOBBY MITCHELL: Keep moving forward, huh?

[32:28] COREY MITCHELL: Yes.

[32:37] BOBBY MITCHELL: All right. I'm.