A SERVANT’S H
Junior’ Madison’s life of service to SAEC an
Most people see the range of someone’s life and notice the dates at the beginning and the end. They think of how long or short that life was, what the world was like when that person entered it and how it had changed by the time they left. But when Jessica Madison looks at her father Nathan Madison Jr.’s life, from his birth in 1950 to his passing earlier this year, her focus is on what’s in between. “For me, the most important part is that dash between the years because that’s where the work is,” she says. “And my dad had an amazing dash.” Known as “Junior” to his colleagues and friends, he was recognized throughout the community for his job at South Alabama Electric Cooperative. To him, it was part of his calling to serve people and help out wherever he could.
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“People were always saying, ‘That’s the light man.’ That was how he was known out in the community,” Madison says. “Even people I didn’t know who knew him were always telling me about how he helped them with this or did that.” That was exactly how his fellow lineman Dewayne McGhee knew Junior before joining the cooperative. McGhee first saw Junior when the veteran lineman would come to his parents’ house to restore power. When McGhee graduated high school in 1989 and was working as a substitute bus driver, Junior approached him about working at SAEC. Since then, McGhee has put in more than 30 years with the cooperative and risen to the role of construction foreman. “The biggest thing I learned about Junior over the years was that he didn’t
just want to come here to live and die,” McGhee says. “He wanted to make an impression on somebody else and leave his legacy for someone else to go on. And that’s what he did.”
Co-op crash course
Junior joined SAEC in 1972 after two years of service with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam and a stint at Luverne Slack Factory. His first job was on a construction crew in Troy before he became an assistant to Serviceman Ed Stroud in Crenshaw County. The two of them were responsible for outages, bill payments and just about any member issues that might come up in the area. And, because the cooperative didn’t have much in the way of formalized training at the time, Junior had to be a quick study. “Back then most of what Junior learned and his knowledge of how the system worked was picked up on the job. He really had to apply
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5/16/22 4:02 PM
