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GONE FISHIN’
Last Friday, April 25th
my little eleven year old girl Kristin and I headed to the O.U.
Biological Station, Buncombe Creek, and Lake Texhoma, Oklahoma for the
annual OCAPL Fishing Tournament. What a perfect afternoon . . .
temperature in the 70’s, low northeasterly wind, the grass was green and
the sky was blue. We checked into our room, grabbed our poles and went
to the bank to wet a line. This was the first year in the last six that
my girl was going to actually cast a lure, enabling me to do the same,
instead of baiting a treble hook with stink bait, hoping for a catfish
or a buffalo (carp) to hit the hook for a kid. Seemed like God was with
us that afternoon, almost every cast of the lines, we got hits or caught
fish – we threw several back and still limited out on stripers that
Friday evening! The fish fry dinner bell rang at 6:50 so we stopped to
go eat, and carried a big bag of stripers up to the dining hall. Sure
was fun filleting those stripers after dinner, then visiting with
several old attorneys and brokers that evening, all standing around
telling stories and smoking cigars. I told Kristin the cigars just keep
away mosquitoes . . . Next morning we returned to the same spot, and as
luck would have it caught a bunch more stripers, Kristin’s stringer
totaled 10.4 pounds of striper, winning her first place in the striper
division. Needless to say, I am real proud of her. Thanks ever so much
to Richard Cope, Jack Sweeney, Jim Whalon and the other committee
members for the most perfect OCAPL fishing tournament ever. I’m hoping
the Membership at large realizes what fantastic networking opportunities
and good family fun the fishing tournament presents.
NEED HELP
Any ideas or
suggestions concerning finding a way for OCAPL to secure and own
permanent office space would be appreciated. I’m working with a couple
of commercial real estate brokers to that end.
MANAGING OCAPL
MONEY
Yes, we changed our
name from the Oklahoma City Association of Petroleum Landmen to the
Oklahoma City Association of Professional Landmen and guess what? OCAPL
did not contemplate sending a new directory binder with the new name to
all fourteen hundred members. The cost of sending everyone a new
directory is very high. Please continue to use your old binder, and
consider using duct tape or other means of repairing the binder until it
falls apart? In all seriousness, new members get a new binder, but
please don’t request any new binders unless yours completely falls
apart. OCAPL could spend or save the money elsewhere and spend more on
our Christmas party?
My intent in
addressing the issue of dress and etiquette in Oklahoma courthouses over
the last few months is simply to implore the in-house Landmen and others
that have authority to manage brokers and their sub-brokers to help
maintain and otherwise enforce a minimum of business causal, even Friday
casual on those Land professional representatives that work in the
courthouses. OCAPL received one letter in response to this issue
asserting that OCAPL should not be the “fashion police” and that my
suggesting brokers and their sub-brokers join AAPL is not realistic.
However sarcastic parts of this letter appear to be, one positive
suggestion therein is that “. . . in-house Landmen could talk
directly to their brokers about how they wish to be represented. Some
monitoring of the field Landman could be done if they were to stop into
their broker’s office on Monday morning or Friday afternoons. At these
times, the company Landmen could get a feel of how their company and
profession will be represented in the courthouse and with mineral
owners.” In the mean time the OCAPL Membership must be advised that
OCAPL does care about this etiquette problem, Mike Walker as field
Landmen chairman and past presidents such as Barby James, Candace
Robinson, myself, along with many others do care and are intent on
monitoring and mitigating this embarrassing behavior. Requiring a
minimum of AAPL membership and hopefully OCAPL membership from every
broker and sub-broker would give them all abundant resources and
benefits of membership, and put them under a strict code of ethics.
Further correspondence with positive suggestions would be
especially appreciated.
CHRISTMAS IN APRIL
Congratulations to
Julie Woodard and Jessica Jennings as Co-Chairs for another very
successful Christmas in April event, I’m looking for a detailed write-up
from them, but suffice to say Julie and Jessica, and their crew of
workers on behalf of OCAPL made a real impact on the life of a
homeowner. Thanks to everyone involved in this event.
CHRISTMAS PARTY
Yes, I’m
already thinking about our Christmas party . . . Ryan Coe appears to
have “Becca D” booked for our party which will be held at the downtown
Skirvin. Some of you may remember Becca from the National Convention in
Austin a few years ago. Suffice to say she is one fine vocalist and
musician. Check out her website at
www.beccad.com .
GOLF TOURNAMENT
POSTPONED
The annual golf
tournament was rained out and will be played on Monday, June 30th
at Oak Tree. Let’s look forward to beautiful weather on the 30th!
THANKS TO TERESA
PORTWOOD
Your OCAPL Manager,
Teresa Portwood is one remarkable person. I hope that each of you
appreciates all she does to manage literally all of the OCAPL social and
business functions. Please join me in expressing that appreciation
whenever you come in contact with her. Many of your Officers and
Chairmen simply would not have the time to help OCAPL if Teresa were not
involved in managing and assisting with all the details of their
respective committees. Thank you ever so much Teresa!
Respectfully,
Ken Wilpitz
2008 OCAPL PRESIDENT
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