Roughly three years or so ago, a great friend and customer of mine, Dave Williams of Richland Pump & Supply in Sidney, Mont., invited me to be part of the annual event in his town, the API Mon-Dak Chapter Golf Outing. This year I drove up with Doug Naylor of the MRA management team and Brandon Gunnell, the Director of Marketing for Anvil.

Dave is a pretty low-key guy when it comes to really getting him pumped up about things, but when it comes to golf, he is beyond excited. Man, does he love the game!

Dave and his partner, Scott Ramus, know everyone in at least a 500-mile radius of Sidney. More importantly, they know everyone who is remotely involved in anything that has to do with drilling for oil and gas wells, and the relatively newly discovered Oil Shale, called the Bakken.

This year happened to be the 36th Annual API Mon-Dak Golf Outing; and believe me, it was celebrated well indeed! API, or the American Petroleum Institute, is a national institution, and Mon-Dak, the Montana and North/South Dakotas division, is the local chapter for all API members, friends and guest in the area. Those who attended were pipe, valve and fitting vendors who sell to Richland Pump & Supply and their many competitors to help preserve and support the daily work and the expansion of new fields – extracting, pipe lines, distribution systems, tank batteries, etc.

The golf outing was a great time. Dave Williams works hard every year to get this event set up and get all the sponsors in place with really fun areas of sponsorship – from cooking, food and door prizes to wine tasting (mostly for the Ladies and me).

As part of the hole sponsorship, Dave produced flags with attendees’ company logos, name/date of the API Tourney on it, which was sent to everyone afterward. It’s very suitable to be in a frame for your office.

The field worker volunteers and the Sidney Country Club employees along with the folks at Richland Pump & Supply put in a lot of time to make this event a little better each year.

I’d also like to mention that Dave has at least one pretty good sized committee of industry people (and I’m sure a few smaller ones as well) that should be commended for their tireless involvement and commitment to Dave Williams, The API local chapter and all the folks at large who assured the event’s success. Consider this a standing ovation Dave, to you and all the folks involved, okay? Great job!

The wine tasting event took place on Saturday. Since I don’t play golf so much anymore and I sort of have a passion for wine, I helped Dave’s wife and her friends, and talked about some of the ins and outs of wine and wine tasting. It is really fun, and the ladies love it.

For dinner Friday night, the Balon Valve Company of Oklahoma City sponsored the BBQ cook out with brisket and provided all the trimmings, smoked and cooked in their own traveling trailer cookers over a two-day period. It was truly wonderful! They even make these BBQ traveling trailer cookers in their factory in Oklahoma. It was the very best brisket I have ever put in my mouth! By the end of the day, they had cooked 240 pounds of brisket and 100 pounds of ribs. People kept coming back until it was ALL GONE! Mind you there were approx. 350 – 400 golfers in attendance along with (my guess) at least 100 people like me. That’s roughly 450 – 500 folks in attendance.
Crazy, huh?

To sum it up, I’d say that Dave Williams and all the people that work at Richland Pump & Supply are a shinning example of what it means to be an independent business. They still use every last ounce of energy they have in their bodies to give to the oil and gas industry, which has taken care of them in the ups and downs of an economy. They do what they do everyday because they love it. Each year the support Dave receives from the customers, friends and vendors simply proves that he has simply put the stamp of approval on the American way!

Thanks for being with me today in Martin’s Corner. Make it a great day for yourself. Blessings to you all!

Until next time,
– John Martin