’m blessed by the Lord, and that is my message.” If you listen to longtime Tulsa County Farm Bureau agent Marvin Winters, you’re likely to hear that sentiment expressed often and proudly. Marvin seems to always wear a broad smile and punctuates his conversations with boisterous laughter. His career with Farm Bureau is inching toward the day that he won’t be taking care of the clients he’s cultivated since 1974. He remembers starting with two other new agents in Tulsa more than 30 years ago. His two counterparts left two or three years later. “I guess it was my dynamic personality,” Marvin jokes about his career as he erupts in his typical laughter. “Anybody in their right mind probably would have retired five years ago.” He’s on a two-fold mission – Marvin has been referring all his new business to the younger agents in the Tulsa office for several years, and he plans on hitting 50 by 2010. “It (joining the Farm Bureau insurance ranks) was the best move I’ve ever made,” he declares. “I give the Lord a lot of credit for guiding me. I now view myself as trying to give more back than I ever have.” Now Marvin, what’s this 50 by 2010? You were born in 1940, so you can’t fudge that much on your age. It is a passion Marvin has held dear almost since the day a neighbor convinced him he should accompany her on a jog around the neighborhood way back in 1979. That was just shortly after an ominous dream. “I had a dream when I had bad cold,” says a no nonsense Marvin. “I dreamed I had been buried alive.” Back then he was a heavy smoker and about 60 pounds heavier. “I woke up and never smoked again. That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” That was lifestyle change number one. His jog with the neighbor was number two. 24 • Oklahoma Country • Spring 2008
“She kept coming around and she’d say I wish you’d come and run with me. She said it was scary to run alone. So I did it,” Marvin said. “She said she’d run wide and I could cut all the corners to keep up and that way we’d be going the same speed. “Although she was barely running, I was ready for her to go wider and wider. But running is funny. Once you get to the point where you can run two miles without stopping, you’re running aerobically – taking in the same amount of oxygen as your taking out.” His jogs became runs – one hour became two, two became three, three became four and Above clockwise: Marvin relaxes under a shade tree in Pocatello, Idaho, after completing the marathon there in “the next thing you September 2006. know you’re a Marvin talks to a race fan after the Haulin’ Aspen marathoner.” Marathon in Big Bend, Ore., following the August 2007 He ran his first event. It was a difficult trail run up a mountain, and he’s telling this woman that it about did him in. marathon in Tulsa Conditions were so bad during and after the Warner years ago, notching Robins Georgia marathon in January 2008, that Marvin four hours and eight came indoors to pose for a picture with his second place minutes over the trophy. Before the big marathon in Jackson, Miss., in January 26.2 miles. 2008, Marvin and his wife, Maryanne, paused for a photo. “I’d give anything if I could run that now. Right: Marvin flashes his effervescent smile when he has Eventually, I became visitors at the Tulsa County Farm Bureau office.