When Roger Hughes won the President’s Award and Business of the Year honors during Sept. 17 Wagoner Area Chamber of Commerce’s Awards Banquet at Patio on the Hill, few knew his troubled past.
Hughes turned a bad home life and some time in jail in his younger years around. The Destiny Roofing owner has turned his scars into stars in his later life.
He acknowledged his past while accepting one of his honors. What he didn’t expand on is the mission work he’s done with his family for churches in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Malaysia and other points around the globe.
Hughes’ life story has a sad beginning and a wonderful, loving and successful present day saga.
“I was adopted at the age of eight,” Hughes said recently. “Before that, I was taken away from my real parents because of a abusive situation and put in foster care till I was adopted. I lived in at least three or four homes in foster care. Even in foster care, I was abused and locked up in a cellar and let out only to be abused.”
Good parents finally adopted Hughes, but his emotional well being had already been shattered. He was difficult to handle.
“The parents that adopted me were good people they just didn’t really know how to handle me because of the anger and hate I had inside of me,” he continued. “I suffered from rejection so much it drove me to do things to be accepted. I started doing drugs in the 6th grade. By the time I was a sophomore, I was addicted to drugs.
“I was the kid that parents told their kids to stay away from because I was trouble. I was told many times by many people that I would never amount to anything and I would end up either in prison or dead.”
Trouble seemed to follow Hughes. He joined a gang and served time in jails in Oklahoma and California.
He ate out of garbage cans and had few job skills to get out of this abyss.
“When I graduated from high school, I was at a second grade level on reading. I had no education. I lived on the streets in downtown Los Angeles. I was a drug dealer and a thief as well.”
Back in Oklahoma, Hughes had an epiphany that changed everything just days before his 23rd birthday.
“At this point I lived in Seminole,” he explained. “One day, when I was on the streets again, I remember saying to myself, ‘I cant keep living like this. Something has to change.”
Then, Hughes felt something come over him.
“At that point I heard the Lord tell me that He loved me. I said there is no way, because I am unlovable. The Lord spoke and said if I give Him my life, he would change and teach me how to be the person He has destined me to be,” Hughes described.
“So, I decided I would surrender my life to Jesus. From there, little by little, my life began to change,” he added.
Hughes got a job at the Coca-Cola plant in Ada. There, he met his future wife, Renee.
“My wife and I moved to Alaska four years after we were married to help with a new church,” Hughes explained. “After that, we were missionaries to Bangladesh for several years. We then moved to Wagoner.”
Destiny Roofing soon followed and his wife helps out there, too.
“We give oversight to 80 plus churches in the Philippines and also give oversight to a work in Bangladesh. We have traveled the world and have been to many nations preaching the good news of Jesus Christ and raising leaders.” he noted.
The path to success is different for everyone, but Hughes’ route climbed out from the negative holes to make a success out of a business and living a good life.
“I have to give all the glory to Jesus, because He is the one who changed me and is still changing me,” Hughes concluded.
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