"This is the tale of a man who for at least 15 years spread friendship and good cheer with a simple gesture on Saturday mornings. It's about faith and breakfast treats and a grandfather who wanted to be sure that his 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren were encircled with love. This is the story of Dick Davis, the Doughnut Man, whose weekly deliveries included not just everybody's favorite flavor but also a personalized message of encouragement scribbled on top of the box.
I am so proud of your exercise program Paul.
Maddie, call and tell me about your dance, and Emma, I loved your choir concert.
The Lord is my Shepherd.
God is Good, God is Great.
Welcome home, college girls Callie and Hannah!
Pa loves you.
At each home along his route, Davis would hang the bags containing the boxes on a hook by the front door. Whoever was the first to get up knew to check the porch. He didn't limit his deliveries to his family, though. Sometimes doughnuts went to strangers at the nursing home where a relative lived or to people he met at the bakery. Now the 78-year-old businessman is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer and can no longer drive. He made his last delivery a month ago. His time appears to be short. Daughter Amy Cuppett thought his story needed telling. "He doesn't do it for any kind of recognition and probably wouldn't remember or tell me everywhere he's ever taken doughnuts," she said. "He is [fighting his cancer] the way he has done everything else in his life: still thinking of all those around him and those he loves." His route on Saturday mornings changed over the years as a result of moves, life circumstances and added friends. Generally it took him from his home in west Arlington to downtown, south to Mansfield and then back north to the lake area. His arrival time at Donuts Express, the Pantego shop owned by Duk Hui Choi and his wife, Sook Ja, was always the same: 5:30 a.m. "He is always our first customer," Choi said of the man who became his friend. "Sometimes he is waiting outside the door."
Mission Arlington, where Davis is a longtime board member and has a close spiritual connection with Executive Director Tillie Burgin, was his first stop. Next was the nursing home, Town Hall Estates on West Mayfield Road. That may be where he picked up his nickname.
While dropping off doughnuts to his relative one day, he was approached by a woman he had never met. "Are you the Doughnut Man?" she asked. "Gosh, yes, I guess so," he replied. "OK, here's my order," she said, handing him a list. A week later, a man in a wheelchair rolled up to him and a similar dialogue took place. The next time, Davis found a note waiting for him with yet another order. After the relative died, Davis spread word that he wouldn't be stopping by much longer. It turns out the surprised residents thought he was part of a service that came with living there. "They tried to pay me for those doughnuts, but I wouldn't have it," he said with a laugh.
From there he would go to Mansfield and deliver to his grandson Trevor Davis. Then it was back to Arlington to the Thomas house on Calender Road, to the Cuppett house on Sublett Road, to the McCants house out by the lake and to the home of his niece Barbie Bricker. Sometimes other stops would come along. By 6:30 or 7 a.m., he was back home. "It's a neat thing that nobody else's grandpa did for them," Amy Cuppett said at a recent gathering with her parents. Joked Dick Davis: "Maybe they were giving them Cadillacs instead."
Funny thing about the Doughnut Man -- who also took them to his employees on Fridays -- is that he doesn't really like doughnuts. For him, the Saturday deliveries were another way to be part of his grandchildren's lives. The gesture was intended to remind them that he treasured them. The notes on the box, he said, were meant to tease them or joke with them, to encourage them, to remind them of God's unconditional, unfailing love for them. "I melted inside every time I'd see his handwriting and the words WeWe, my nickname," said granddaughter Whitney McCants O'Neal, 29. "The doughnut deliveries were specific and meaningful. He knew my likes and dislikes. He knew my brother likes sprinkles, my mom the cinnamon twist and me the doughnut holes. He wasn't just buying a half-dozen glazed but a special order for each loved one."
Now, weakened by his illness, he has one regret: His special treat continued through the high school graduations of all but one grandchild, Emma Cuppett, 16. "It's really sad for me," Davis said, his eyes welling up. That her grandfather is worried about her amid the fight for his life says it all, the Martin High student said. "I couldn't feel more blessed," she said. "I will forever hold tight to Pa's small acts of kindness." Another funny thing about the Doughnut Man: His wife of 57 years, Norma Sue, said she never got one. "I don't do doughnuts," she explained. "And I don't do early." That Davis found the time to make his weekly deliveries is noteworthy in itself. He was a globe-trotting entrepreneur with his own business empire. Davis is CEO of General Electrodynamics Corp., which makes portable weighing systems for airplanes. In the early 1990s, the turnaround specialist founded a holding company called Nordic Industries, whose name was created from the first three letters of his and his wife's first names. So sometimes he was overseas. When he was home, he never missed a Saturday.
"Through rain, sleet or snow, our doughnuts were always waiting for us on our door," said grandchild London Thomas, 24.
Said granddaughter Hannah Cuppett Burton, 22: "Pa's simple act of bringing the doughnuts spoke volumes: He loves us, he is proud of us, he wants me to have the apple fritter.
"Oh, how I love the Doughnut Man!"
Okay, sweetest thing ever!
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