West Tulsa Man Uses Talents For Nameplate Gifts

Emory Bryan, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- A West Tulsa man has given gifts to people all over Tulsa - gifts that he makes - and no one who gets one has to ask - is that for me?

Everything that Cecil Poston makes in his basement workshop comes from the bottom of his heart. Poston started making name plates more than 20 years ago.

He sells a few and gives a lot of them away.

"I get asked constantly if those are individual letters," said Cecil Poston.

He's a retired city sign maker, so cutting out the letters came naturally. The hobby came second to his first love of brick collecting - but he wanted something he could share.

He found that with handcrafted nameplates.

"I'm just grateful the Lord gave me a talent, something I can do and pass on to someone else, and they can get enjoyment out of it too," he said.

He has plenty of orders, and not just at Christmas. He has a list of every one he's done, but it's on scraps of paper, and he's never counted them up. It's easily in the thousands.

"Just pleasure in seeing their face," he said. "It's like handing a toy to a child, they're just tickled to death, they can't believe I did something just for them."

He likes that reaction - and that sometimes gives him a chance to talk about how he's a changed man.

"I'd go get drunk and wind up the next morning in a doorway or on the sidewalk by a tavern,"

It was a cold January long ago when in one night he was kicked out of his house, a bar and the cab that took him back home.

"And when I got out of the cab, he came around and Bam! busted my nose," Poston said.

After hitting bottom, Poston says he found the faith that changed him - and a talent he didn't know he had.

And now he's sharing both his faith and his talent - one name at a time.

For the ones he doesn't give away, Poston charges $5, which he says doesn't even cover the power bill.

Each one has a Bible verse on the bottom.