Derek "Mac" Richard McDonald

Derek Richard ‘Mac’ McDonald, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, passed away peacefully at Community Hospice in Vidalia, Georgia, surrounded by love.

Born in New Zealand, a native Maori, Mac lived a life defined by quiet dignity, unwavering strength, and service to others. In his early years, he was a professional rugby player, known for his resilience, skill, and sportsmanship. Rugby wasn’t just a game to Mac — it was a way of life, teaching him lessons in teamwork, perseverance, and humility.

After retiring from the sport, Mac went on to serve with the United Nations for over 25 years. His work took him to some of the world’s most challenging regions, including Somalia, Angola, and Iraq. Despite witnessing hardship and conflict, Mac remained committed to peace, diplomacy, and justice. He believed deeply in showing up — in doing the hard work, even when it went unseen.

After returning home from his work abroad, Mac continued to serve his community in quiet and meaningful ways. He volunteered with Bread of Heaven, a local food outreach program, offering steady hands, warm smiles, and a deep sense of care for those around him. He gave his time not for praise, but because helping others simply felt like the right thing to do.

To those who knew him, Mac was a man of few words and great presence. He was thoughtful, observant, and steady — a quiet force in every room he entered. He loved his family deeply and cherished the simple joys of life: dancing in the kitchen, sitting on the porch with his wife, sharing meals, and being close to those he loved most.

In his final years, Mac faced dementia with grace, and even as the disease took pieces of him, his spirit remained. The love he carried never wavered. He was, and will always be, a man who walked through the world with a deep, quiet kind of love.

Mac is survived by his devoted wife, Denise; children Desiree, Dehlia, Joshua; daughter-in-law Stephanie; and grandchildren Sarina, Aaliya, Mikaela, Raine, Taurus, Hayden, Kye, Zoey, and Erik and his great-grandson, Kaewa. He was preceded in death by his son, Maurice.

A memorial service will be held Thursday evening, August 7, 2025, at 6:00 in the chapel of Ronald V. Hall Funeral Home.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 5:00 until just prior to the service.

In lieu of flowers, family respectfully suggests donations to Bread of Heaven, PO Box 142, Uvalda, GA 30473.

A Maori Farewell:

Farewell great one. Rest now.

Rest now.

Rest now in peace.

Written by: Denise McDonald

Below: Article from Community Living Magazine, Summer 2024, The Advance, Vidalia, GA by Amber Nagle

BIG MAC

A towering figure talks about his time on the rugby field, his work with the United Nations, and his life in Vidalia

It seems like a tall tale — that a man would tear his anterior cruciate ligament (better known as an ACL) during a rugby match, yet endure the pain, discomfort and instability that comes with such an injury and continue to play to the end of the game without saying a word to anyone. Most of us would doubt the truth of such a story if told to us by a friend or colleague. However, if Derek “Mac” McDonald says that it happened, it happened.

Mac is no ordinary man. He is part Goliath, part beast, part superhero, and part Renaissance man — one of those guys who can do just about anything he puts his mind to. And on that particular day, on a rugby field in France, Mac decided to keep playing.

“I knew what it was when it happened,” says Mac, who lives in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Vidalia. “I knew I had torn my ACL during that game, but I just kept playing.”

He pauses for two or three beats before continuing.

“Rugby is a very competitive sport, and there’s always someone waiting to take your place,” he says. “Weakness is a bad thing, so I knew that if I showed any weakness that day, I may very well have lost my position on the team, and I was not going to let that happen.”

So Mac suffered through the pain that day. It was not his first injury, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last. He powered through them all — black eyes, bruises, broken fingers, two ACL replacements, two shoulder injuries that required surgery, just to name a few.

“Watching him play rugby was brutal,” his wife, Denise, adds. “Mac has a very high tolerance for pain, but no one enjoys seeing a loved one get hurt.”

Rugby is known as one of the most dangerous sports in the world due to its intense nature and the fact that players don’t wear protective gear. Imagine playing football without a helmet or pads … well, that’s rugby.

And Mac loves it. At 65, he says he misses it every day.

Back in his glory days, he towered over the others at 6’ 6” and weighed in at 380 pounds.

“We’re talking pure muscle! There was no fat on his body,” Denise says. “Mac has always been very fit. You have to be to compete in that sport. I mean, in rugby, the game never stops.”

“Rugby players are constantly in motion with two 40-minute periods of play and a short half time in the middle,” Mac says matter-of-factly.

“If a player gets injured, the game doesn’t stop. They just play around the guy,” Denise laughs. “It’s crazy.”

And like the game of rugby, Derek “Mac” McDonald doesn’t stop moving. He’s constantly in motion and just keeps on going.

First and Foremost, a Rugby Player

Mac grew up in New Zealand, where he lived with his parents and eight younger siblings. At the insistence of his father, he started playing rugby when he was just four years old.

“Then when I was 16 or 17, my uncle was a rugby coach, and he said, ‘Come play rugby with us,’” Mac remembers. “But his team was playing against really big men. There were 15 on each side, and they were standing shoulder to shoulder. My uncle said, ‘See that guy? Just punch him when he comes down.’ There was a lot of physical contact. It was very rough.”

From there, Mac played for ten years at the highest level in New Zealand. Rugby has the largest spectator following of all sports in New Zealand. He played for the counties in the National 1st Division.

As a young man, he joined the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), the organization responsible for military protection of the country, promoting its interests, safeguarding peace, as well as conducting humanitarian missions.

“The military didn’t have a big time rugby player, so they marketed with me — ‘Come see the soldier boy play,’” he says. “And they gave me a plane and flew me all over the world to the games. Can you imagine?”

He played for the New Zealand Army for 15 years, traveling to Chili, Argentina, Barcelona and Egypt.

But Mac decided to leave the military after tragedy struck his family.

“I was sitting on the banks of the Tigris River in Iraq, near Bagdad, after learning that I had lost a cousin who was about the same age as me,” he recalls. “And I realized that I wanted to leave the military, so I did.”

He left the military, but he didn’t leave rugby behind.

“I played all over the world,” he says. “After the Army, I played professionally in France and lived in Holland.”

In 1994, he was hired by the United Nations (UN), who sent him to Somalia, where he spent three years. After that tour was up, he moved to New York, then Angola, then New York again to work at the UN headquarters.

But he continued to play rugby.

In the states, Mac joined the Rockville Centre Rugby Club in 1996, an organization that merged with the Long Island Rugby Club in 1998. Mac coached the Long Island Rugby Football Club (LIRFC), taking the club to the national championships three times — winning nationals once and placing twice.

In 2008, the UN sent him on a mission to Baghdad for two years. He finished out his career with the UN in New York.

An Incredible Journey

His sports and employment took Mac to many countries around the globe.

“I’ve been all over the world,” he says. “I’ve walked where Jesus walked, and I’ve seen the pyramids. I’ve had a great life full of adventures, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

He shares a story about being in Egypt — driving home in the dark when he noticed a vehicle coming his way with no headlights on. Suddenly, the tiny Toyota pickup flashed its headlights. Then all was dark again.

“And there was a camel in the back of that tiny truck bed,” he says. “That camel was huge. And you know why they didn’t have their lights on? Because they didn’t want to wear them out.”

Denise urges him to tell the story about the time he tried to ride a camel — not the same camel from the Toyota truck bed. “He tried to ride the camel, but the camel just sat down,” she laughs. “I guess Mac was just too big for the camel.”

In his work for the UN, Mac outfitted armored cars for the Secretary General and his entourage, making sure that the vehicles were safe with up to date police gear during tours in Angola and Bagdad. He says that the vehicles looked like normal cars, but looks can be deceiving. They were outfitted like tanks.

“The UN got the [high tech equipment] before the U.S. Secret Service did,” he says. “We’d all be at the summits with the heads of state, and the Secret Service guys would sit in my office and ask me why we had better equipment than they did.”

He worked with 40-vehicle UN entourage teams during the Clinton, Obama and Trump administrations, working closely with the Secret Service agents.

“The Secret Service agents wore unique lapel pins on those days — they never wore them twice. That’s how you could instantly tell they were Secret Service. And at the end of the day, they’d leave their pins on my desk. I kept some of those.”

A McDonald Love Story

Denise was born in Santa Rosa, California, but as a self-described, “Army Brat,” she and her family moved around a lot to accommodate her father’s military career.

“My dad was a Green Beret in Vietnam,” Denise says with pride. “We moved a few times during my childhood and eventually moved to St. Augustine, and that’s where I was still living when I met Mac. We had mutual friends who got married in St. Augustine in 2000, and we met at their wedding.”

But the couple admits that there was no spark during that first encounter — nothing. A decade later, the two saw each other again at their friends’ home, and something felt different.

“I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we knew,” she says. “There was magic, and my whole world changed that day in 2010.”

Mac, who was working at the time for the UN, lived in New York. After they saw each other that second time, the two kept in touch, talking for hours and hours on the phone and visiting each other from time to time. The long-distance romance went on for two to three years before Denise decided to move to New York.

“Our niece was getting married in Tucson, Arizona in 2016, and we decided that we would drive to Las Vegas and get married,” Denise says. “Our wedding was cool! We got married in a helicopter flying up and down the strip around 10 p.m., and we said our vows as the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel went off [spraying their water into the air].”

They went back to New York as man and wife, and Mac continued his work for the UN. Denise worked in a dental office.

The couple endured the pandemic together in 2020.

“After COVID, Mac said he was ready to retire after a 25-year career with the UN, and that’s when we started talking about leaving New York,” Denise remembers. “We decided to look for houses in Georgia, so we called a realtor in Savannah and told him what we were looking for.”

Mac and Denise put several bids on houses, but the housing marketplace was so competitive that they were disappointed over and over again. The realtor began to look beyond Savannah to find a home for the McDonalds.

“We were looking for certain features,” she says. “Mac likes to make things, so we needed a workspace for that, and we wanted a place where we could comfortably have animals, among other things.”

Their realtor called and told the McDonalds about a house in Vidalia. They looked at the photos online and loved what they saw. They bought it without seeing it in person.

“And the day we moved in, we both felt that we were finally home,” Denise says. “We love the area, and we love to walk downtown. We are close to Lowe’s and restaurants, and our neighbors are so friendly. It’s a community, and that’s what we were looking for.”

Mac says his favorite spot is on the back deck — a screened porch where he can see the backyard and watch the couple’s four dogs run around and play.

“Everest and Skye are sisters,” Denise says. “And another dog, Gwynie the Pooh, was born here while we were fostering her mother. And then there is Kingston, who we adopted when a neighbor got sick and was unable to care for him.”

She also mentions fostering cats, noting that they’ve worked with SOAPS, the Sweet Onion Animal Protection Society, a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote animal welfare through education, care, and placement of stray or unwanted animals in Toombs and surrounding counties.

If you haven’t already guessed, the McDonalds are devoted animal lovers and the work of SOAPS is important to them. They mention a cat Mac rescued named Scrounge and the importance of spaying and neutering animals to keep the unwanted pet population down. They are also vegans, eating plant-based foods and avoiding foods that come from animals.

“There are plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables available year round here, and that’s wonderful for us,” Denise offers.

The location and lifestyle is much different than the one they knew in New York.

“I rode my motorcycle in and out of New York for 10 years,” Mac says. “I like it here. It’s less hectic, and that’s nice.”

And they love the values of small-town living, demonstrated by a story Mac shared.

“I was at Lowe’s — I go to Lowe’s a lot,” Mac says. “And I was pushing one of those big big metal carts full of wood through the parking lot, when some of the wood fell off. All of a sudden, I noticed a woman and two young boys in the parking lot near me, and the women said, ‘When someone needs help, you help.’” And her sons, who must have been like 8 and 9, ran over and started helping me with these big pieces of wood. It was incredible — that a stranger would stop and help, and encourage her sons to stop and help, too. The people here are so nice. I really love that about this area.”

The act of kindness made an impact on Mac’s heart, still bringing tears to his eyes when he thinks about it.

Mac, the Doer

“Mac will do anything for anyone,” Denise says. “He’s just got such a big heart. There’ve been a few times when a man in our neighborhood needed his yard mowed, and Mac just went over there and mowed it for him. If he knows of a neighbor in need, he’ll help. That’s just who he is.”

Though he’s retired, you won’t find Mac at home on Fridays. That’s the day he commits his time and energy to serving Bread of Heaven, a local non-profit mobile food distributor that hosts drive-through food lines at various sites in the area. Mac, like the organization he so tirelessly serves, is dedicated to helping families who are experiencing food insecurity in their homes.

“We set up in Uvalda, Cobbtown, Vidalia and other places in the area,” he explains. “It’s based on need — no questions asked. We see 300 to 500 cars at these events. Around Christmas, 700 cars came through the line to get boxes of nutritious food.”

For Mac, the work is very personal.

“I grew up in a large family in New Zealand,” he says. “I was a kid with very little food to eat. This is important to me — to help Bread of Heaven with their mission.”

The McDonalds also enjoy working with the Altama Museum of Art and History.

“We are active in the Jackson Heights community [Denise is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jackson Heights Association], and we supported PorchFest,” Denise says.

And they spend time with family members a few times a year. Together, they share a son and two daughters from other marriages, and there are 11 grandchildren and a great grandchild, too.

Denise, who works at Oxley Dental, says that now that Mac is retired, she jokingly encourages her friends to ask him to do odd jobs to keep him busy — not that he needs any help keeping busy.

“Mac is a doer,” she says. “He’s very smart and can do anything. But he’s also very humble and doesn’t talk about that much or boast.”

For example, Mac makes jewelry in the couple’s garage.

“I took a silver dollar and made it into a ring for a friend,” he says. “It’s pretty cool. You can see the eagle.”

He also shares about a little side business he’s recently launched that restores old car batteries. Friends bring their dead batteries to Mac, and he reconditions them. He took a course to learn how.

“It’s easy,” he says. “Anyone can learn and do things.”

But not everyone is Mac.

“I guess my fingers just don’t like to rest,” he adds. “My mother taught me to knit, crochet, sew and do macrame.”

“He even makes his own shorts,” Denise says. “At 6’ 6”, he’s so tall that it’s hard to find shorts at the store for him. He can make them, so he does. My husband can do anything.”

Mac moves through life at full throttle, facing down every obstacle and charging ahead with the intensity of a forward plowing through defenders on a rugby field. He’s always in motion, always loving fiercely, and always helping animals and people around him. That’s just how Big Mac rolls.

 # # # Story by Amber Nagle

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