SBG announces the closing of our satellite Hobbs office after many decades of activitiy in this small New Mexico community.   In the early 1970's our business was birthed in a tiny powder-blue home office in this city and eventually grew to reside in the largest (OK, the only) office building in Hobbs in the 90's.  While our activities in New Mexico continue to thrive, we will now steward them all from Midland.  As such, we must say farewell to our long-time Hobbs office manager and friend, Peggy Lentz.  Thank you, Peggy, for providing SBG with many years of faithful service, friendship and rum cakes.

After a two-week trip to Nevada, Shane and Nelson have returned exhausted, bearing torn clothing and toting shiny rocks.  While this may be typical for anyone's stay in Nevada, these two gained their plunder hiking through hills and ravines staking gold claims.  To commemorate this endeavor, we created a new company (with a nod to John Wayne):  Hondo Mining Company, jointly owned with their fellow prospectors, businessman Scott Barthel and hard-rock geologist Ray Wittkopp.  As we embark on our venture in gold mining, we will attempt to keep in mind Howell Spear's sage advice, "You know, you can make a small fortune in Nevada.  First you start with a large fortune..."

Since Mallory White opted to attend nursing school full-time and was completely unwilling to work the graveyard shift for us, she is sadly exiting SBG.  We of course wish her the best and hope to meet her again, but not in a professional capacity.  Also, best wishes to Natalie Tiller whose talents in interior design were unable to be fully utilized while working in an oil and gas business regardless of the myriad opportunities available to color our lease maps.  We welcome Allison Westfall to the group to help fill in the holes and to shut the door.

It was 'wunderful' hosting world-travelers Jim and Carol Wunder who made Midland, Texas a must-see destination (as so many do) on their summer travels.  While we shared a lunch of chicken-fried steak and other comfort food, Jim was making arrangements to visit Togo, Africa to eat less comfortable food and assist in the implementation of Crossroads, an educational strategy which imparts life skills and character development to youth in a way that engages and changes them.  Togo is one of the 60 countries which has been helped by Crossroads to overcome the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS, addictions and violence.  We hope that an African diet does not have any devastating impacts on Jim.

The SBG sponsored a luncheon today for the Gill family from Budapest.  They shared with us little bags of paprika and their vision to bring hope to a highly melancholy people.  Hungary has found itself on the wrong side of most wars in the last few centuries and its citizens can often identify Americans in their midst merely by the smiles on their faces.  As the Gills shared their activities with us we were affirmed that this upbeat family is well-equipped to bring a message of encouragement and significance to those they work with.  One small example of their influence:  many residents of Budapest now believe that Americans will fight each other to wear "The Turkey Hat" at Thanksgiving dinner.

We are pleased to announce that contrary to our Sept 28 entry, Mallory White will continue on with SBG.  She has arranged her nursing school schedule to allow her to work part-time.  To properly maintain headcount, on the days Mallory will not be in the office we plan to arrange for a full-size cardboard cutout to sit in for her (figurine totes a doughnut box).  Thanks Mallory for staying with us!

We were held captive at lunch today by the fascinating memories of Rick Vasquez, a former gang leader in the Texas prison system. Totally transformed, he now operates from the other side of the bars as field director of an organization helping prisoners and their families As a testament to his new life, Rick was able to eat his entire enchilada without twitching while seated next to Nelson (a former prosecuting attorney).  Jeff Swan, a co-worker of Rick’s, lunched with us as well, but consistently failed to top any of Rick’s stories of knives, murder and ultimate redemption.  (Sorry Jeff, not many people could.)

We are expanding office space again – slightly.  The new office has a strategic view of the reception area as well as the long, long, long hallway.  With any luck our Office Manager will glimpse views one might normally need to travel to a prairie dog farm to experience (when everyone pops their head out of their doors at once).  Thanks to the Fasken Center and Permian Basin Builders for a job well done. 

We would like to celebrate the arrival of our newest employee, Natalie Tiller.  Natalie will be the gatekeeper/receptionist at our downtown Midland office fielding your phone calls, processing the correspondence for a dozen or so companies and keeping the riff-raff out of the lobby area.  A tough job and we are happy to have her!

As excited as we are to have Natalie join us, we are equally sad to see a valued employee leave us.  Mallory White is being called to the nursing profession and will exit the SBG about the same time Santa arrives (we’ll need to watch out or he will catch us crying and pouting).  We do wish you the very best, Mallory – thanks for giving us two great years of service and many boxes of T&T doughnuts!

SBG enjoyed a lunch visit with the Pound family who will be leaving the comforts of home soon and heading for the red-light district of Calcutta (or "Kolkata"), India.  Helping women and families escape the generational lifestyle of poverty is their goal – their method is to provide women good-paying work in a local purse-making business.  These women earn enough to not only quit their night jobs, but to provide for their entire family as well.  Contact us and we’d love to tell you some of their stories (maybe not the one about the fish sacs).