The MMA Experience — Lessons learned run deep in Hall of Famer John Josendale ʼ72

You might say military school is in the DNA of the Josendale family.

The son of a West Point graduate, MMA Hall of Fame member John Josendale ʼ72 arrived at Missouri Military Academy as a sixth-grader in 1965. He may have been new to MMA but he wasn’t new to the military school culture.

“My father went to West Point and my brothers went to Culver Military Academy,” Josendale says. “We had all attended summer camp at Culver.”

Culver Military Academy has a special tie with MMA, dating back to 1896. When a fire destroyed the Academy that year, MMA founder Col. A.F. Fleet took the cadets to Indiana, where they attended Culver until MMA reopened in 1900.

Josendale’s father, James, served in military intelligence during World War II and later headed up the family business, Wire Rope Corp. in St. Joseph, Missouri, and sometimes stepping away to fill government appointments when his country called. His business and government obligations meant a lot of travel and sparked concern for stability in his son’s school life. The solution was enrollment at MMA.

“In 1965 I was the youngest cadet there,” Josendale says.

John Josendale ʼ72, Missouri Military Academy class photo. 

Josendale spent seven years at MMA, active in everything from sports to drill team to Glee Club. A three-sport varsity letterman in football, swimming and track, he also helped propel the Fusileers to their first national championship in 1972. Graduating that year, “Josey” shared distinction with Rick Zahnow as the two most-decorated cadets on campus.

“Rick and I were the only four-year Fusileers,” he recalls. “We loved it!”

One of his fondest memories of MMA includes meeting Col. Charles Stribling II when he first arrived. “I have the ultimate respect for ‘the old colonel,’ as we called him,” Josendale says. “My father served on an MMA board with the colonel and had the highest respect for him. He also served on the Missouri Chamber of Commerce board with the young Col. Stribling III, which is an honor I also shared.”

Another highlight was the inaugural parade in Washington, D.C., for President Richard Nixon in 1969. Josendale carried the MMA guidon as he marched the parade route with the MMA Color Guard and Academy Band.

Josendale excelled in sports at the Academy, but it didn’t come easy. “The football coach, Lt. Col. Joe Bailey, told me early on that I would never make the football team or be a varsity athlete,” he recalls. Yet Josendale did make the varsity team his last two years at MMA, earning the Len Japp plaque for outstanding lineman and the Fighting Irish Award in his senior year. “By then, Coach Bailey was also the athletic director, and when he presented the award to me, he admitted, ‘You proved me wrong.’

“MMA is probably not right for everyone,” he says. “You take kids from different ways of life and put them in a different dynamic. So, you focus. Dave Steinmetz [teacher and assistant football coach] smartened me up. He took the time to work with me and gave me a sense of self-worth. It wasn’t easy support, though. I had to earn it.”

He learned to listen, he says. “And by listening, you can understand people. You’re able to compromise and work with other people — see the other side. That is one of the important lessons I took from MMA and I’ve benefited from it all my life.”

John Josendale ʼ72 has served as the major of St. Joseph, Missouri, since April 2022. 

After graduation from MMA, Josendale earned his bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Missouri and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He built a 48-year career in industrial manufacturing at the family business, WireCo WorldGroup. Working both domestically and abroad, he served the company as a senior executive in sales, business development and global management, taking the domestic company from bankruptcy to a nearly $1 billion global corporation.

“MMA’s big selling point is the world view it offers,” Josendale says. “One of my first roommates was from Mexico City. The Academy gives cadets a learning environment and they learn to understand and live in a global world.”

MMA gave Josendale a foundation he leaned into as he navigated his career at WireCo, expanding the company’s markets in southeast Asia, China and the Middle East. “I’ve spent much of my life traveling, often alone,” he says. “Listening to people, understanding them and interacting with them — it enhanced my world and gave me the basic tools to succeed.”

Josendale’s career veered further into public service a few years ago when, after retiring from WireCo, he was elected mayor of his hometown of 73,000 residents, St. Joseph. “It goes back to the values ingrained in a military school education — duty, honor, country,” he says. “I was gone from St. Joseph for more than 20 years, for school and then for work, living in North Carolina, New Orleans, St. Louis. By the time I moved back in 1988, WireCo was a changing company. In early 2006, we had closed the offices in St. Joe and relocated the company headquarters to Kansas City. I chose to live in St. Joseph and commute to Kansas City. I didn’t go to high school here — I was at MMA. So, how do you fit back in? It was challenging, but I vowed to do anything I could do to bring St. Joe back to what I remembered growing up.”

Now in his second year of a four-year mayoral term, Josendale has found the same values and lessons of MMA have stood him in good stead. “It’s all about how you treat people and how they treat you,” he says. “Respect people, communicate. You go out and listen. Whatever your decision on an issue, some people will like it and some will dislike it. But if you’ve listened to them, they’ll respect you.”

John Josendale ʼ72, Hector Uribe ’89, Oscar Uribe ’92 and MMA President Brigadier General Richard V. Geraci, USA (Ret) at the Alumni Recognition and Awards Banquet on September 28, 2024.

The Academy inducted Josendale into the MMA Hall of Fame for Government and Community Service during Homecoming  2024. Through many return visits to the campus, he marvels at how the Academy has changed over the past 50 years. “My room in the Junior School barracks was right next to the Richardsons’ faculty apartment [houseparents Maj. Darius and Nathalie Richardson], overlooking the campus. I have watched MMA evolve from a small school to what it is today. And I told President Geraci I’m excited about where MMA is going. I’m more than willing to help out wherever I can.”

The Josendale ties to MMA have continued through the next generation as his oldest son, John, and his nephew Peter attended MMA in the late ʼ90s. Although neither graduated from the Academy, their time here was valuable, Josendale notes. “My son John spent 18 years in the military and now works as a civilian analyst for the military,” he says. “Peter is a paramedic. MMA was the starting point.”

Whatever the length of a cadet’s stay, it is time well spent, he adds. “MMA gives a cadet self-respect, honor and feeling for others,” he says. “And the longer you’re at MMA, the closer you grow to the people around you. It’s a Brotherhood. There are a lot of personalities in the corps — people taking action — and that’s very positive. It’s all about what you want to put into it. It made a difference to me.”

As it will for many more generations of cadets. “When you come out of MMA, you start over,” Josendale says. “You have the experience, the lessons, the tools to be as successful as you can be. And give yourself credit for bringing them to the next phase of your life.”