Meet Ricky Fitzpatrick! Ricky is a part-time worship leader at Cornerstone Church and lifelong music lover. He is married to Cretia and the couple has four children together. He also has a woodworking business in Jackson County.
We want to thank Ricky for spending time with us recently and telling us more about his life and love of Jackson County.
Question: Tell us a little bit about you and your family.
Answer: “I’m a part-time worship leader at the Cornerstone Church. We’ve been going to Cornerstone for about 12 years now and we’re blessed to be there. I love music anyway and I had pursued a music career as a younger man. Between the two of us we have four kids, two of them are grown, a 16-year old girl and 13-year old boy.”
Q: What’s your favorite thing about living and growing up in Jackson County?
A: “I’ve lived here virtually my whole life. I don’t wanna sound hokey or giving you a canned answer about it, but really, I love the people here. We’re a growing county, but I’m still stuck in nostalgia here. I remember all the people that I grew up with, I remember the places that we visited, the places we lived, where we went to church, so on and so on. And it still feels like a small town to me. I don’t think I could see me ever really wanting to live anywhere else. It’s just a cool place and we’ve got just enough stuff within arms reach.”
Q: Who’s one of the most interesting people that you’ve met in Jackson county over the years?
A: “It’s hard to pick one, but I will say the person that came to mind in about five seconds was someone that lived on Jett Roberts Road, that’s where I grew up, and we were very fortunate to live there in a community with the Buffington’s that owned the Jackson Herald and several other people who were active in the community. But the person I remember the most was JT Wilkes, who was the probate judge for years in Jackson County. Not only was he the probate judge, but he seemed to be interested in the younger kids there in the neighborhood. He had beehives before it was trendy. He was an amazing guy that had this breadth of knowledge and I’ll never forget him.”
Q: What’s your favorite restaurant in Jackson County?
A: “We do love to eat out so that’s a tough one. I’ve got two places. Kay’s, is not really a restaurant but Kay’s chicken salad; I can go in there and get a tub of that and be good for the day. Even though it’s fast food, we’d love Culver’s, it’s amazing over there because the people that own it, they’re like super involved with it. They’ve still got a 100 rating on their cleanliness score, which I think is unbelievable. They’re never out of anything, they’re fast, but they’re the best restaurant I know of around here. I would eat there every day.”
Q: What do you order at Culver’s?
A: “I like the fish platter. It’s a two piece fish dinner, it comes with fries and fried fish and I shouldn’t eat it because I’m recently recovering from a heart episode but that’s what I like so I will splurge on it. Their frozen custard is wonderful, I love their custard with malt powder in it.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “It’s something that me and my wife, Cretia want to do together. When we’re older, we want to buy a little house on the beach somewhere out of the way and just live out our days in shorts and flip flops and be on the beach. That’s that’s what we both want to do. I don’t travel a lot, I’ve never been out of the country but I would love to go to Ireland.”
Q: What would you rate 10 out of 10?
A: “I’m trying to narrow it down to just one thing. The first thing that comes to my mind without a doubt would be my wife and I’m not trying to score points but she is more than half of me.”
Q: Who are your three favorite bands or performers?
A “I do want to say this because this is the reason my youngest son is named Jude and it’s not the Beatles. I named him Jude because I think Jude Cole is one of the most incredible musicians and he’s not very well known, but I love everything he does. He’s famous for one song, which is called ‘Start the Car’ and Travis Tritt covered it.”
