{"id":3963,"date":"2012-01-26T15:27:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T21:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=3963"},"modified":"2012-02-06T09:19:53","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:19:53","slug":"paid-off-but-peddling-to-get-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/01\/26\/paid-off-but-peddling-to-get-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Paid Off, But Peddling to Pay Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Joe Wertz \/ NPR StateImpact<\/p>\n

What could help Boley, a small town Oklahoma's most poverty-stricken county? "Jobs," says Leonice Banks-Mitchell, owner of McCormick's Grill.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Boley\u2019s biggest employer is a state prison, the John Lilley Correctional Center, which houses about 800 inmates on any given day, officials there say.<\/p>

Technically, more than half the town is behind bars.<\/p>

You\u2019ve heard of a one-horse town. Boley is a one-restaurant town, and its owner has a lot of perspective on life in the most poverty-stricken county in Oklahoma.<\/p>

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\u201cPeople are struggling,\u201d says Leonice Banks-Mitchell, who owns McCormick\u2019s Grill on the south side of U.S. 62 in Boley.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ NPR StateImpact<\/p>\n

McCormick's Grill is the only restaurant in Boley, Okla.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Everyone calls her \u201cPookie,\u201d and her eponymous hamburger and soul food Sunday dinners are legendary.<\/p>

Pookie grew up working at the restaurant, which her uncle built.<\/p>

Pookie moved to Oklahoma City in 1985 to work for a janitorial service company. In 1988, she moved again, this time to California to help her aunt manage a restaurant there.<\/p>

Pookie returned to Boley in 1999 at the request of her uncle, who was suffering from congestive heart failure. She helped him run the restaurant until 2002, when he died.<\/p>

Her uncle left her everything, including the restaurant. The restaurant is paid off, she says. If it weren\u2019t, she doesn\u2019t know if the restaurant would survive.<\/p>

\u201cBusiness is so slow,\u201d she says. \u201cBusinesses is not like it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scraping and Scrapping<\/h3>

Poverty in Oklahoma is at a 10-year high<\/a>. Things are particularly bad in Okfuskee County, where 27.3 percent of its residents lived at or below the poverty line in 2010, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, the poverty rate is 16.8 percent.<\/p>

[module align=”left” width=”full” type=”pull-quote”]<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m retired, but I\u2019ve got to go back to work.”<\/p>\n

-Jerry Mitchell<\/h6>

[\/module]<\/p>

The flow of customers was steady until 2002, Pookie says. Most of her customers come from the highway; people driving to and from work. When there\u2019s no work, there\u2019s no traffic \u2014 and no hungry commuters.<\/p>

\u201cAs long as I can make enough to pay the bills, I stay running,” she says.<\/p>

The struggle forces people to hustle, Pookie says.<\/p>

\u201cYou see people hauling iron and steel, picking up trash here and there and hauling it off,\u201d she says.<\/p>

Pookie\u2019s husband, Jerry Mitchell, is among those salvaging and collecting scrap metal to sell to a nearby recycler.<\/p>\n

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