The Hockley County Herald (Levelland, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 2, Ed. 1 Friday, October 14, 1960 Page: 2 of 16
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hnoey. GctM*r 14, iHu
busi-
cackling .”
cable
Ire
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TM NQGKLkT COUNTY HttALD, UveitaM,
Tahoka, O’Don-
Levelland and
the chicken
and brought
nec-
one
the
joined Midcontinent Petrol-
Company at Maud, Okla., in
Okmulgee, and they made
meet by growing their own
there
it up
V *
Okla-
state-
However, he returned home to
spend Christmas at Breckenridge,
where his parents had moved in
the meantime, and remained be-
cause they needed a tooldresser.
It was at Drischol, Oklahoma in
1922, that Price met his wife. He
was staying at an oil camp, liv-
ing with the farm boss.
“People kept telling me I ought
to get acquainted with Blanche,”
Price recalls.
He made his big move for a first
a#
Os
date by inviting Blanche — and
her little brother — to the movie.
They were married on Jan. 16,
1923.
The call of higher pay brought
Price back to Okmulgee, where
he dressed tools until he and his
wife decided to move to Wash-
ington State.
He worked for a year at the
Bremerton Navy yard, helping to
construct a new submarine tender.
Price and his wife liked the
country, and would have stayed
except for the fact that the higher
income of the oil patch beckoned
them back again. They returned
to Cromwell, Okla., where Price
worked on the first well drilled
there.
In this general area, Price met
and worked for a number of years
with Guy Swain of Sundown, form-
er Hockley County Sheriff As a
matter of fact, Swain was among
the men on the job when Price’s
brother, Asa went down the well
shaft.
Price worked at such places as
Pampa, Shamrock, McClain, Hollis
and Erick in the days before the
depression put the lid on all busi-
ness.
For three years, in the depth
Production foreman saw eany-day
development of booming oil fields
string of pipe during the summer
time.
Moving equipment any distance
might mean camping out two or
three nights enroute, with 20 or
30 teams and wagons moving to-
gether.
^Before finishing school, Price
went to Okmulgee where he took
his first full - time oil field job as
a pumper for independent produ-
cer Bill Shaeffer.
He moved to Billings, Okla., for
Ntew lower priced
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IVEUM PAGES
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Price was born as W. R (Ray-
mond) Price on Feb. 11, 1902 at
Wilburton, in eastern Oklahoma,
one of a family of six boys and
two girls
The family moved off the farm
when he was young, and Price fol-
lowed his father and older brother
into the cable tool drilling
ness.
His father had come to
homa from Missouri before
The 11 cities in the High Plains
region of Northwest Texas are Bor-
ger, Pampa. Amarillo, Plainview,
Lubbock, Slaton,
nell, Lamesa,
Brownfield.
ington of a proposed contract
for repayment of $92,960,000 of the
$96,090,000 cost of the Canadian
project.
The Intenor Department said ths
contract will be the largest dollar
repayment agreement ot its kind
in Reclamation Bureau history.
Execution of the contract by
the Canadian River Municipal Wa-
ter Authority and its validation by
the courts are necessary steps
before construction of the pr/ject
can start.
TEXAS DEMOCMTS FOR NIXON • LOOK
AUAH SMVUU. CWnMa
The project is
elude a multiple purpose dam and
reservoir on the Canadian River
near Sandford and to supply wa-
ter to the municipalities through
a 325-mile aqueduct system.
Two contract elections are
essary in each of the cities,
approving the contract with
government, and another with each
individual city approving its con-
tract with the authority.
The government contract elec-
tion has been set in November,
and indications are that most of
the cities will also set their indi-
vidual contract elections at the
same time.
New ’61 Chevrolet IMPALA SPORT SEDAN
You’ve got five Impalaa to pick from—models that put
the accent on luxury while offering all of Chevy’s new
ideas about comfort and convenience—like larger door
openings, higher seats, and a low-loading deep-well trunk.
the present church pastor was
called.
Price is also a Scottish Rite Ma-
son.
He and Mrs. Price have four
children, all of whom are college
graduates and two of whom have
masters degrees
The oldest child is Raymond Jr.,
who received his masters degree
in petroleum engineering from
Oklahoma University and now is
production superintendent for An-
son Oil Company.
The daughters include Mrs. Ken-
neth McKown (wife of an Albu-
querque Internal Revenue Agent)
onty are expected to be called
into session with directors from
other cities in tne very near fut-
ure to complete final arrangements
for contract elections in member
cities.
Stage was set for this meeting
Monday through approval in Wash-
•i
of the economic deep freeze, Price
managed only occasional drilling
jobs. Through out this time, they
lived on a 2*/i acre plot of land
he and his wife had bought out-
side
ends
food.
He
eum
January of 1955, and remained
there until the company moved
him to Andrews County in 1945. He
served at a pumper until 1947
when he was moved from Andrews
to Eunice in 1947 as a production
foreman.
He was foreman of this area
when the first deep wildcat — a
12,250 Devonian strike, was brought
in on the Sawyer ranch at Cross-
roads, New Mexico. This well
caused a great deal of excitement
in the area, and close to a dozen
rigs moved in right away to start
the deep oil exploration.
As is characteristic of deep oil,
however, there was no boom.
In 1955, his company merged
with Sunray to become Sunray-
Midcontinent and Price and his
wife were transferred to Level-
land.
“We hated right bad to move
to Levelland, but we would hate it
worse to move away,” Price says.
He and his wife moved into a
company house at 1107 11th Street,
later bought that home, then mov-
ed to 131 Cedar in the Colonial
Heights subdivision in January of
this yearr
In his wont nere. Price over-
sees 92 wells in the Anton, Level-
land and Cochran County area.
He and his wife belong to the
First Baptist Church, and Price
is a member of the Levelland Ro-
tary Club. He was chairman of
the church building committee
when its latest educational unit
expansion was done, and a mem-
ber of the pulpit committee when
His past also includes 30 years
as a deacon in Baptist churches
where he has worked, and a stint
as a Sunday school teacher.
It is this pattern which he fits
better, because even with his work
in an often hard and trying busi-
ness. this pattern is the one to
which he has attempted to mold
his life
His friends, his neighbors, and
the people who work with him have
nothing but good to say about him,
and he feels the same about those
with whom he works
“They couldn’t be finer," he
says.
And of the grand, rugged old
days of the petroleum industry,
such as the boom days in Ran-
ger where you could cross the
muddy street in a sled for a dime
or get yourself killed for fifteen
cents, so the story goes, over on
Fifteen Cent Street.
Price steered clear of the rugged
spots and although he lived in
many places in Texas and Okla-
homa during the transient exist-
ence of an early day oilman, he
Which do you prefer. the socialistic, anti-
Texas platform of Kennedy — or the Nixon
Platform that more nearly conforms with Texas
principles and ideals as expressed in the State
Democratic platform?
The Kennedy platform is against
nearly everything Texans are for—it
is for nearly everything Texans are
against
What will be your choice? It is be-
tween a party label and the best
interest of Texas and the Nation.
Allan Shivers sayse
“111 TAKE TEXAS. I accept the
Texas Democratic platform and will
work for it I repudiate the other—
the Kennedy platform. I will join with
my fallow Democrats to work and
vote for men of maturity, experience,
responsibility, and a fearless dedica-
tion to this country's beet Interests.
*1 will vote for Richard M. Nixon
winter of 1918 at wide - open Ran-
ger.
Although he was something of
a veteran in the business by this
time, Price still had a hard time
getting a job. “They were begging
for men, but I still had fuzz on
my face.” Price recalls
His older brother, Wiley worked
as a driller and Price as a tool
dresser, however.
Six months of Ranger’s roaring
activity behind them. Price and
his brother moved on. Price ended
up on a wildcat well at Merkel in
1919, then rejoined his brother at
Erick, Oklahoma later.
Price’s brother taiKea him into
continuing his education, and Price
moved to Fort Worth where he
enrolled in the old Brantley and
Draughon’s business college in 1920
at the age of 18.
Price worked his way through
school, living in the back of a ser-
vice station, opening up in the
morning and closing in the even-
ings. He liked business college so
| well that after finishing, he decided
| to go back and complete his high
school work, which he began.
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ROPES SWEETHEART CANDIDATES
One of these students at Ropesville High School will be
crowned Football Sweetheart during half-time activity
at the Homecoming game Friday, Oct. 14, between
Whiteface and Ropesville. Candidates are Mary Marrow,
senior; Freda Pointer, freshman; Sandra Wetherspoon,
junior; and Jeannie Kalhick, sophomore.
PRICE
who holds a masters degree from
the University of New Mexico and
teaches English in Albuquerque
High School; Mrs. H. M. Smyers,
a Tech graduate and a teacher in
Lubbock public schools, whose hus-
band works for Southwestern Pub-
lic Service Company; and Mrs.
Harry Birkelo, a graduate of TCU
and a teacher in Fort Worth pub-
lic schools. Mrs. Birkelo’s husband
is stationed at Fort Worth.
The Prices have five grandchild-
ren, and Price rates playing with
them as one of his chief hobbies.
The others (when he has the time):
fishing and playing golf.
DANCE
Friday, October 21
Pep, Texas School Auditorium
MUSIC BY
PAGE HOWARD
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FLATLANDS EMPIRE PROFILE
W. R. PRICE: The hard years left him mild, kind
hood about the turn of the cen- another brief oil boom stint, then
tury and worked in the oil fields later joined his older brother when
around Morris, Okla . from about he returned from the Army in the
1910 to 1915.
They moved onto the Osage In-
dian Reservation after leaving
Morris, in the days when "blan-
ket” Indians were still plentiful,
and helped with the development
of the oil field at Hominy.
Price lived in an oil camp, and
went to school at a company school
driving an oil field team with a
They offered any one of the 30
'"muleskinners a hundred dollars if
he’d go down the hole, and the
men just laughed at them.
, It was then they decided to let
a chicken down 150 feet to where
the cable drilling rig bit had been
lost. They left
for 30 minutes,
again.
“It came out
Only then did Asa ride a
’* down the 24-inch hole, carrying a
y light with him. At the bottom, he
tied a cable to the bit and min-
.,Utes later they snaked both him
and the bit out of the hole.
For W. R Price, now produc-
tion foreman for the Levelland
group for Sunray - Midcontinent
Petroleum Company, this is just
one of many vivid memories of
early - day boom times in the oil
fields of Texas and Oklahoma
The youthful Price had offered to
go down the shaft, but his older
brother. Asa. wouldn't hear of it.
The live chicken, which Price
had suggested, was testimony that
no deadly gas was seeping into the
well shaft Also, they had convin-1 almost always took his wife with
ced themselves that the danger of' him — which was a little con-
a cave-in had been minimized.
These were the “wild” days of
the oil business, when every well
which came in blew in wild.
.. “We couldn’t do anything about
.'it. All we’d do is run when they
started to come,” Price recalls.
Price covered the boomtowns like
a war correspondent on assign-
ment. working almost every one
of them he could get to on the
cable rig “firing line.”
Bristow, Ranger, Breckenridge,
Pampa, Slick, Slick City, Crom-
well, Lefors. These and others were
the boom towns he made.
There were bone-aching 12-hour
days, one piled on top of the other,
# and cheap thrills that sent you
.'-scurrying for your life.
He worked on three or four ngs
the old wooden variety — where
-.the rigs collapsed into the well
-shaft, “with pullies, wire and ev-
erything coilied up around your
Meet.”
On another occasion, the brake
gave way on a cable tool rig, and
jrfnL J." jH”0 w
Mito the hole '-xin.^fig cable be-
hirid it.
Price got a head start, but still
lost the race to get away from the !
wild rig to an older man who was
working with him.
Price also saw his share of oil
well fires, although none of them
ever endangered his life. He and
his wife even had famed oil well
fighter Tex Thornton as a dinner
guest one day when he shot a-
well Price was drilling with 700
quarts of Nitro.
Price also brought in some big ,
gas wells, one of them a 100 mil-
' lion gallon well of such volume !
♦hat “you just don’t see them any
more ”
Lika the oil wells, of course, I
these gas wells were wild, and
they blew the tools out through
; the top of the rig when they came
• *" 'I
t If his past might seem to indi-
cate Price is the rugged, hard- j
nosed swashbuckling type, the '
picture is wrong.
The grey-haired, blue - eyed vet-
eran of the oil path is every inch j
a gentleman, and if the oil busi-
ness has done anything it seems' Levelland directors of the Cana-
that it may have softened his tex- i dian River Municipal Water Auth-
Canadian
dam gets
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The Hockley County Herald (Levelland, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 2, Ed. 1 Friday, October 14, 1960, newspaper, October 14, 1960; Levelland, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1169161/m1/2/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting South Plains College.