Crawford knows oilfield has its up’s and down’s

West Texans know the oil business has its ups and downs. Jim Crawford of Grandfalls is one who has experienced it first-hand for more than 50 years.

“I remember when oil was $10 a barrel in the late ‘80s,” he said. To put that in perspective, crude oil prices reached a record high OF $147 IN July, and the price per barrel over the past few weeks has been between $60-$70.

If there’s one thing he’s learned over the past half century, it is “this economy comes and goes,” he said.

Crawford moved from Brady to Midland in October 1958 and went to work for Universal Construction Co. He calls Brady his hometown, but the 70-year-old said he was born in Mason and graduated from high school in nearby Rochelle. Once a year, he and his wife of 24 years, Jeannie, visit for the annual goat cook-off.

He then moved to Jal, NM, and joined El Paso Natural Gas Company, where he would work until his retirement in 1995. His early jobs in oil included that of a roustabout, and he also worked in the paint shop in Jal. He left Jal in the spring of 1963 and moved to Terrell County in Texas, where he worked in dehydration. He also remembers a three-month stint working offshore.

“Offshore drilling is interesting,” said Crawford. To get to the offshore platform, workers were often transferred from barges onto boats. Then, they would hoist workers aboard the platform from the boat using a large buoy-like apparatus.

“One time, they had to get me off a barge and onto a boat.” Crawford said there were “12-foot seas” and “I was praying.” They put Crawford on a rope and he had to swing from the barge onto the boat. As it happened, the waves brought the boat almost even with the barge, and Crawford was able to basically just step across onto the boat.

“I think my prayers were answered that day,” he said, laughing.

In November 1967, he moved to Monahans and worked as a field operator. That job entailed taking care of dehydration, blowing lines and turning wells off and on.

In 1984, during his stint at Monahans, he met and married his wife, Jeannie Wristen, a native of Monahans. Wristen owned and operated a drug store in Grandfalls, and that’s where they met. Besides running the drugstore, Wristen said she carried hardware and cooked breakfast and lunch. When the oil boom went bust, she opted to close the store in the early ‘90s.

Crawford continued working as a first line supervisor on the Waha Field in Coyanosa until his retirement in April 1995. His work with El Paso Natural Gas Company continued on a contract basis until 1998, when he formed his own gas meter business, Pecos Valley Production Services.

These days, Crawford works three weeks and then takes off a week to travel with his wife. They travel to places like Rio Dosa Ruidoso?), Sweetwater, Big Bend National Park and Hot Springs. Mrs. Crawford enjoys working at the couple’s home in Grandfalls, where she tends to their trees and enjoys gardening.

“She’s a green thumb,” says Crawford proudly, sipping a drink as he sits in a garden surrounded by blooming flowers. The couple’s two dogs, Willie (named after Willie Nelson) and Andy lie close by as their cats wander in and out.

Crawford, who is a cancer survivor, also is busy these days working as Mayor of Grandfalls, a position he began in September.

“We needed a business person,” said Crawford, “someone to watch the city finances,” a role he’s embraced.

The Crawford family is a large one with six daughters between the two. Crawford’s daughters are Debbie Moore and Cathy Andrews in Waxahachie and Rhonda Gasaway of Odessa. His wife’s daughters are Sandie Burke of Austin, Pan Bowen of Monahans and Belinda B of Grandfalls. The couple has xx grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Crawford said he never realized he would remain in the oil industry as long as he has.

“I thought I wanted to be a football coach, he said. Priorities shifted, however, after he started working in the field and raising a family.”After that, I never gave a thought about quitting,” he said. It’s a word still not in his vocabulary as he enters his next half-century working in West Texas old fields.

Article by Sheila Boggess, Staff Writer