Former media executive finds new calling saving donkeys: "It's never too late for a new start and chasing joy"

 After a tough childhood and battling drug and alcohol addiction, Ron King defied all odds to become a dedicated and successful media executive. However, his job was eventually laid off, and when the pandemic hit, King felt lost.

What happened next was totally unexpected.

King found himself and created a purposeful, life-saving new donkey. He founded the non-profit Oscars Place on a 75-acre ranch specializing in donkey rescue and rehabilitation in Hopland, California. Five months after CBS Morning's Senior National Correspondent, David Begnoau, visited the ranch, he decided to get in touch with King for the CBS Morning series "How Are You Now?"

“Things are going great,” King said in a recent interview.

Life at King Ranch is a far cry from life pre-pandemic. He wore Gucci and traveled between New York and Los Angeles as Senior Vice President of Time Inc., overseeing sales and marketing for big name brands. He told Benaud earlier this year that when he flew to Milan in first class to get a front row seat at Versace's runway show, he found himself "successful."

However, in 2018 Time Inc. was sold. stripped of his royal status. After that, he got a freelance job, but he started to feel hopeless as his work got stuck due to COVID-19.

He then receives a call from his old friend and prominent pop art dealer, Phil Selway, instructing him to move into the King Ranch and sell it as it is unused.

"I thought it would be a win-win situation. He helped me a lot and giving him another project would also help," Selway said. King took the job and found a new peace in the property.

"My head is like a snow globe that's always shaking. He never stops," said King. "This feeling of chaos in my head was very normal to me. When the snow globe stops in 20 years, you can feel it.

"I had no other thoughts in my head than this beautiful setting, and for the first time in 20 years I felt at peace," he said.

Well, peace met by chance. King discovers a story about Donkey's predicament. Donkeys are historically known to be powerful luggage beasts capable of carrying supplies. But they go beyond their usefulness. For example, donkeys, which can live to about 30 years old, are auctioned and slaughtered and skinned for the skins used in traditional Chinese medicine.

So he asked Selway if he could take the ranch off the market and King turn it into a donkey sanctuary.

"When Ron gave the presentation, my first thought was that he was crazy and it would be crazy for me to be a part of it." I couldn't be happier."

Donations support their cause. Without them, every donkey on the ranch would have been killed. "The only way to help a mentally abused donkey recover is to love him healthily again," said King. There was a moment when I realized there was a difference between us.

"I was 52 when I realized these were two different things. It's a very different way of life," he said.

By helping Donkey heal, King may be healing his own invisible wounds. The son of a Southern Baptist minister, King's struggles began at an early age when he discovered he was gay.

"It didn't work out because they were young, religious, and had a little wimpy boy," he said of his parents. "All I really wanted all along was to be a problem." did."

In his twenties, King was homeless and dependent on alcohol and drugs. He sobered up after surviving an overdose.

He said King understands the power of his resilience and is helping rebuild Donkey's strength and confidence so he's ready for his adoption. After the story first aired on CBS Morning, a surge in donations allowed King to build five new pens to segregate arriving animals and protect the health of the herd.

"Do you still feel that what you're doing is important?" Begnau asked him.

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