By Stephanie Stuckey
My father is a man of contradictions—charming and magnetic, yet often exacting and hard to read. To the outside world, he’s still “Congressman Stuckey,” a Southern statesman who can hold court with war stories from the Lyndon Johnson and Watergate eras, equal parts raconteur and gentleman. But to me, he’s just Possum—that’s his nickname, earned for his gift at eluding adversaries and spinning a story so good you’d forget what you were mad about in the first place.
There’s a wonderfully warm side to my father, full of love for his family and pride in our accomplishments—even if he doesn’t always say it out loud. Then there’s the tougher side, the one that snaps from praise to critique in a blink. That emotional whiplash became a rhythm I learned to dance with as his daughter. In family businesses, love doesn’t always come wrapped in hugs. Sometimes it shows up as raised expectations and hard-won respect.
When I decided to buy back Stuckey’s, the family company started by my grandfather in 1937, I hoped my father would be proud. Instead, he offered a brutally honest assessment: “You’ve never even run a lemonade stand—what makes you think you can run Stuckey’s?” I’d come to him for a blessing. I left with a challenge.
It would be easy to paint that moment as hurtful—and at the time, it was. But in hindsight, it was a gift. That comment lit a fire in me, one fueled not by resentment, but by resolve. I was going to prove I could do it—not just to him, but to myself. That hunger to work hard, to earn every inch of credibility, has been one of the greatest drivers of my leadership. Not everyone gets a father who showers them with praise. Some of us get fathers who sharpen us like a blade on stone—and in their own way, they’re showing love, too.
That legacy of grit didn’t start with my father. It was passed down from my grandfather, W.S. Stuckey, Sr.—Bigdaddy—who launched the Stuckey’s empire from a roadside pecan stand during the Great Depression. He believed in putting in the work, treating people right, and never forgetting where you came from. My father absorbed those lessons, even as he carved out his own path—first in politics, then in business. When he got the opportunity to bring Stuckey’s back into the family fold decades later, he did so with pride, but also with emotional distance. It wasn’t fully his creation. Perhaps that’s why it never stirred the same passion in him.
But it stirred something in me.
Running a third-generation company means navigating the echoes of those who came before you. It means balancing tradition with innovation, honoring the past while forging your own identity. And it means wrestling with the complicated truth that sometimes, love looks like pressure. Sometimes, support sounds like skepticism. But it’s still love.
Today, as I lead Stuckey’s through its revival, I carry all of that with me—the lessons, the contradictions, the legacy of tough love. I’ve come to understand that my father’s challenge wasn’t meant to break me. It was his way of testing if I was strong enough to carry the weight of our name. And in proving that I was, I came to see just how proud he really is.
There are no shortcuts in a family business. No cheat codes. Just long roads, mile markers, and the determination to keep driving—even when the GPS goes haywire. But I’ve got the map my grandfather left behind. I’ve got the lessons my father taught me, even when he didn’t mean to. And I’ve got a trunk full of pecan log rolls, ready for the next generation of road warriors.