Oklahoma City Pipeliners 2025 Update

00:00:02 Speaker 1
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00:00:30 Speaker 2
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast.is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline.

00:00:53 KC Yost
Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Today we'll be catching up with Larry Cumpton of the Pipeliners Club of Oklahoma City. We'll be discussing the club and the cool things they've been doing since we visited with him last year. Hey, welcome back to the Energy Pipeline Podcast, Larry.

00:01:12 Larry Cumpton
Thanks KC. Appreciate you having us on the on the podcast today. I'll do my best to try and not be too boring for you.

00:01:20 KC Yost
Oh, looking forward to the discussion. Always enjoy our visits. You're a good guy. You're a good guy. Hey listen, before we start talking about the OKC Pipeliners, take a few minutes, if you would please, and refresh our listeners on your background.

00:01:37 Larry Cumpton
Casey I'm, I'm originally from Oklahoma, I guess you could say I'm a sob. I'm a Southern Oklahoma boy and born in Oklahoma. Spent half my life getting away from Oklahoma, another half getting back. Been involved in oil and gas industry early on in life as well as for about the last 15 years now back in oil and gas business. My dad was a pipeliner and so I knew a lot. Of course pipelining has changed a lot since my dad was in a pipeliner back in the 70s, but it's a wonderful group of people to be involved with, to be back in the industry itself. I like said, raised in Southern Oklahoma, went to school in Ada, Oklahoma D Central University. And.

00:02:28 KC Yost
Didn'T you play sports there?

00:02:30 Larry Cumpton
Well, some people would argue that I actually played or not, but I was on the basketball team and the track team at East Central, so I was involved in some sports.

00:02:43 KC Yost
There you go.

00:02:45 Larry Cumpton
Got married and we lived in Oklahoma for a few years and traveled around with construction projects for the O.M. scotts Company for a few years. As the parents, our parents got older, it came time to come back home and take care of our parents and so we moved back to Oklahoma for that but really have enjoyed being back home, raising family here and grandkids and now I even have a great granddaughter now. So really, really like being in Oklahoma. And the Pipeliner Club is one of the things that I really appreciate a lot.

00:03:21 KC Yost
Yeah. How long have you been a member of the Pipeliners?

00:03:24 Larry Cumpton
This is our 10th year, so we're celebrating the 10, 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Pipeliners. And I've been a member since the beginning, so 10 years now.

00:03:33 KC Yost
Outstanding. And what position are you in now? Are you a director?

00:03:38 Larry Cumpton
I said on the board of directors. We just recently had our elections and Pat Gabula is the president of the organization. Mark Tyler's vice president. They do, they do a fine job. Force. Chandler Clark is also the treasurer of the organization. So we've, we've really had kind of a struggle to come back after Covid, but the club is continuing, moving forward. And of course, we're an organization designed to raise money for scholarships for the next generation, get the next generation the education they need to be involved in our industry. And they don't necessarily have to be in our industry, but any industry, as far as that goes.

00:04:25 KC Yost
Sure. So now you say the organization was formed in, in 2015?

00:04:30 Larry Cumpton
That would be correct. Yep. That was our first year.

00:04:33 KC Yost
2000. Good, good. So are you guys a spin off of the Tulsa Pipeliners? You know, when I talk to them, they like to remind me that they're older than the Houston Pipeliners and they were the first in, in the United States.

00:04:47 Larry Cumpton
We are a spin off of Tulsa and we kind of have set our schedule, meetings so that individuals that come in from the Houston area for the Tulsa meeting can turn around and the next night come and have dinner with Oklahoma City Pipeliners. So it makes those travelers where they can get double their, double their money, basically.

00:05:14 KC Yost
There you go. There you go. One expense account instead of two, Right? That. That's right. That's right. So last year when we visited, the membership was starting to pick up. You, like you said, you had challenges with COVID and, and that type of thing. What, what is your membership count now?

00:05:32 Larry Cumpton
I think we're at 450 some odd members. Most events we have about 70 to 100 at the, @ the dinners when we have our dinners monthly. And we've been fortunate in some of the speakers. Good. Second, I'll tell you a couple speakers that we've had over just the last, the last year. Chris Smith with Oil and Gas Journal was the speaker a few months back.

00:06:01 KC Yost
Nice.

00:06:01 Larry Cumpton
Chris Wright, the new Secretary of Energy for the US in the Trump administration, was a speaker back in March last year. Ian Yingling with Black Swan recently was a speaker for us as well as we've had Mike Stice, he's the dean of former dean of education for OU in the earth science portion of the university. Todd Lamb, former lieutenant governor, actually the company I work for, Tanaris Lucas Zinalti came in and spoke to us on, on the steel industry and the effects of what could happen in the steel industry. And the lieutenant governor, Matt Pinell was there to celebrate our 10th anniversary dinner that we had last month with a few other senators and congressmen as well. So we've had some, we've had some great speakers. If you're not coming to some of our meetings, you're really missing out on some really good speakers and some good educational things that they're sharing with us.

00:07:10 KC Yost
Who do you have lined up for the rest of the year? Now you run July to July or July to June.

00:07:18 Larry Cumpton
It really is. We take June, July and August off. It's a summer months. People are on vacations. They got other things to do, places to go and people to see. So we stay away from that in March, Our next meeting coming up, you know, this month Casey Blackford is going to be our speaker. He's with McGriff Transportation. He's here to visit with the guys, more about the transportation and the OSHA side of safety for the businesses. And so he'll be our speaker in March. And then on April 11, it's the annual golf tournament. We'll be having that at Lincoln Park. We have openings for 288 golfers. There's still some spaces left to come play golf with us if you'd like. We got some. We always have some great cooking. The guys at Baylon do a great job of cooking for us. And also M and M Supply will be out there cooking lunch for the golfers that day. They'll be cooks on the course, a lot of nice prizes and things to win. So we're looking forward to having a great crowd for that. April 22nd we'll have David lynch, he's with Arvest Bank. He's going to come in and talk to us about lending in the energy industry in April. So we're looking forward to that one as well.

00:08:42 KC Yost
What an interesting topic for a bunch of engineers and sales guys.

00:08:47 Larry Cumpton
Even though sailbillies kind of need to know where the money could come from though. We gotta understand all pieces of this machine that we're part of.

00:08:57 KC Yost
No, I think that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Now who's that again? You say that's March, April 20th April.

00:09:04 Larry Cumpton
That'll be our dinner April 22nd here at Oklahoma. We have them at Quail Creek Country Club. That's in the north part of Oklahoma City, just south of Edmond, but north edge Oklahoma City. Great place to have. We actually have. And I'll challenge Tulsa on this a little bit. Our food's better than Tulsa, so you really should come and eat our. I've teased them about that a long time. They have great food, too, don't get me wrong. I just. It's something I can. I can tell about and get away with it.

00:09:36 KC Yost
I got you. I got you. I got you. And then what happens in May?

00:09:40 Larry Cumpton
May I. I gotta go back to my other calendar for that. But let me. Let me bring up something else first, if you don't mind, since we're right after the first year, like, for everybody that's. That's members of the Oklahoma Pipeliners to remember that they have to rejoin the club annually. Memberships are $55 for a year. If you're a student, it's $20. Also, we'll be opening it up the. The scholarship application portal. That will happen here in the. In the next few weeks. And our deadline, I believe, on having your scholarships back in there, be in the portal. But for those who are wanting to try and get a scholarship from the Pipeliner Club, remember, you have to be a member to qualify and be a member for over a year. Year and a half, I believe, is what the deadline is.

00:10:38 KC Yost
So the sponsor. The sponsor needs to be a member.

00:10:41 Larry Cumpton
Yep.

00:10:41 KC Yost
Okay.

00:10:42 Larry Cumpton
And then the sponsor qualifies. His wife would qualify. His children would qualify. On a different level, slightly less level. Grandchildren qualify, and then even another level from that. Nieces and nephews qualify as well. There's scholarship opportunities out there, and we've been very fortunate that we've been able to raise a lot of money over the. The last few years. And we certainly need more people to apply for scholarships. We got money to give away.

00:11:18 KC Yost
Good. That's. That's wonderful to know. Wonderful to know. So now the sponsor needs to have been a member of the club for a year and a half is what I heard you say. And. And they. And they have to attend a certain number of meetings the year before.

00:11:39 Larry Cumpton
Half of the dinner meetings. And we'd like for them to volunteer or participate in one of the events, which is the golf tournament or the clay shoot. We also have Christmas party.

00:11:49 KC Yost
Okay. And I. I suspect. I suspect the more they volunteer or if they're working through the chairs and working from treasurer through president, that you get extra points for. For the sponsor.

00:12:07 Larry Cumpton
You're. You're right on. Right on track. That's exactly it.

00:12:11 KC Yost
All right, so the. The sponsors being adjudicated as much as the applicant is. Yes, almost. Now, do you have in person interviews or how. Do you. Do you have interviews with the kids?

00:12:25 Larry Cumpton
We do not. We try to get to know them after. After the selection has occurred. When we get the scholarship application in, it goes to our committee to review, and everything about the recipient and their sponsor is blacked out. So the committee can't. All they're seeing is the facts about the person. And you can certainly send in. We ask you to have a three. I believe it's three reference letters involved in your. In your application, of course, information about your grades, where you're going to school at. And it's pretty detailed. And there's. But there is a checklist that you just check off as you put each piece of it together, and then you return it right back to our website. You just feed it right into her email address. They're clean.

00:13:21 KC Yost
Is he. Is it good? Is the applicant required to be going into their sophomore year, or do you take applications for freshman year?

00:13:32 Larry Cumpton
For the freshman year. It's. It's a lesser amount. It's. I want to say I believe it's. We had it at $1000, but I believe it's like at 1500 now. Don't, don't. I say it'll tell you in the, in the form itself. And then as. After you've completed your freshman year, then you're available for a full scholarship with match maxes out at around $5,000. And, you know, members like our president. I know Pat won't mind me saying this. Three daughters that Pat has had through the Pipeliner Scholarship, they all started out as freshmen. They all graduated from. Well, the last one still in college, one daughter from ou, one daughter from TU in Tulsa, and another one's going to OU right now. And so when I asked Pat to come be a book on the board, I put a little pressure on him. I said, hey, we've kind of helped you out. It's time to help the club out a little bit. And Pat is. Pat's a wonderful gentleman, wonderful man. Thank the world of him. And. But I'm really tickled for him and how well his daughters have done with these scholarship program.

00:14:49 KC Yost
Yes, I. I understand. I understand. I was actually chairman of the Houston Scholarship Committee for five years. Four years. Four years. And when I wasn't there, I had, I had. I've had Two daughters, a niece and a granddaughter all be recipients of scholarships from the Houston Pipeliners. So I, I am indebted to them for life good organizations and that's why I like to do these, these visits with, with the different organizations. There's, there's so much commonality across the board and what we do, little differences. We don't get give scholarships to freshmen and you know, sometimes our scholarships are a little bit larger than the other organizations. But you'd expect that out of Houston. Right. But it's, it's all pretty much, pretty much the same. Well, congratulations on that. So, so let's, let's talk about how you guys raise your money for these tournaments. Oh, unless you found out who's going to be speaking in May. Have you found that?

00:16:01 Larry Cumpton
Actually we don't have my listed on the website yet so, so I can't. I know that we have them lined up through, through the year basically but that one wasn't for me yet. So we raised money.

00:16:15 KC Yost
The dinners you've got the. How many golf tournaments do you have?

00:16:19 Larry Cumpton
Two in the past and this year we've tried to focus instead of having to have one very big nice golf tournament. So same thing with the clay shoots. We'd had two in the past, one in the spring, one in the fall where you're going to one and really promoting those events very heavily also.

00:16:37 KC Yost
Okay.

00:16:38 Larry Cumpton
So start to notice in the, in the next few months we're, we're rebuilding the website. We, we've decided to make our website a little more user friendly and have it where it's going to provide us a little more information, a little easier for people to sign up for events to join the club and so on. So those are, that's happening as well.

00:17:03 KC Yost
So. So the golf tournament is in April?

00:17:05 Larry Cumpton
Yep, it's at Lincoln park. We have two courses so we'll have, have availability for 288 golfers that day. Be some great drawing gifts that you can buy tickets for and, and it. And the clay shooter, our number one way of, of raising money. Member membership is probably the next after that. And the dinners are really probably a break even for the club. It's not, not really make much money there.

00:17:40 KC Yost
Now you said you have a lot.

00:17:41 Larry Cumpton
Of cookers at the golf tournament and we'll have cookers. Opico is a company that does cooking for us at the play shoots a lot of the time. Those guys do fantastic work. As a matter of fact we had ribeye steaks everybody ribeye steaks last year. So you get a good meal and we give away a lot of guns. We'll give away somewhere between 10 and 15 guns at the deal with other prizes as well that's available. So.

00:18:11 KC Yost
Man, I am talking to a guy from Oklahoma City, aren't I?

00:18:16 Larry Cumpton
Just a side note, for up until last year, for the last six years before that, I was the guy that that registered all the guns. So I was always kind of afraid the federal government was going to come showing up at my house wondering why I was buying 15, 10 to 15 guns a year. Of course, it immediately gets changed over as soon as somebody wins it to the new owner. But I always thought that was kind of that was kind of different from you'd have to go. And I don't participate in the clay shoots. Not I have rheumatoid arthritis and clay sheets don't do my body much good anymore. But it sure is fun watching other guys do it, I'll tell you that.

00:18:58 KC Yost
Oh my. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the clay shoot is going to be this fall.

00:19:06 Larry Cumpton
October 10th, which is north of Edmond. Great facility those guys have up there. They have a wonderful they have three different ranges that you can shoot on, plus they have other activities that we add. We'll bring in a couple cookers and there'll be vendors scattered out over the course to give away all different things from their companies to the shooters. And it's a great time of fellowship, too. And it's. We've been fortunate, you know, that we've never had really had we've had a couple days where it's a little bit windy, but other than that, we've had great weather for all the clay sheets, too. So 10-10-1 that will be we'll be back at Silverleaf.

00:19:52 KC Yost
So April 11th and October 10th we've got the Pipeliners Club of Oklahoma City golf tournament and shoot. Right. And they can find out they if they want information on it, they can go to okcpipeliners.com the you can already.

00:20:12 Larry Cumpton
Start to register for the golf tournament registrations open. We're looking for golfers. We're looking for sponsors. Anybody wants to come sponsor. Charles Smith and the guys at Baylon just do a wonderful job of cooking for us. And so the guys from Eminem and there. So we'll have a couple different cooks. So bring your golf clubs and bring your appetite. That's the things that are important for the golf tournament. And it's pretty much the same thing for the clay shoot. Then in October it'll be great fellowship with good food. We'll have I'm not sure who our breakfast sponsor will be, but we'll feed you breakfast and then when you get off course, we'll feed the guys from Opico Typically will feed you some, some nice lunch too, to go along with it. Then we'll have the drawings. So after, after all of that.

00:20:59 KC Yost
So, okay, so that's one round in the morning then. You don't, you don't have a morning shoot and then an afternoon shoot. It's all in the morning. Wrap it up at lunchtime and you're ready to head to the house. Okay. All right. Well, that's great. Now you guys are doing some charitable work, aren't you?

00:21:19 Larry Cumpton
Well, no, really, pretty much all the money that we raise goes straight to the scholarship fund. Being a 5C6, we're able to contribute that money back to our members, families or the members themselves in the form of a scholarship. Those scholarships go straight to the bursar's office at the university of their choice and they're applied. If you have a $5,000 scholarship, you'll get $2,500 each semester. Overdependence is the way it works out.

00:21:53 KC Yost
Yeah. Excellent, Excellent. Let's talk about the scholarships. How many, how many scholarships did you pass out last year and how many do you hope to pass out this year?

00:22:04 Larry Cumpton
27 scholarships went out last year. We, we gave away about $87,000 worth of scholarships, as I recall. This year we love to increase that to, to give away 110 or $120,000 worth of scholarships. We need more students to apply. We need more members so that, I mean, I always tease the guys when we're at the play shoot or on the golf course. I say, just think that all this money we're raising is for the children. I mean, that's really what it is. We're raising it for your family to help put them through college and they can choose their career. We even actually offer scholarship. If want to go to a trade school, become a plumber or become a electrician or any of the trades, the scholarship's available for those guys and girls just as well.

00:22:59 KC Yost
So if any of the listeners are here and want to participate in that, they need to sign up now, get a year and a half in so that they're eligible for the. To sponsor a scholarship recipient next two years. Got to get the, got to get the, the wheels turning right now. Real turning. So we talked about golf. We talked about the sporting clays. You guys do any fishing?

00:23:27 Larry Cumpton
Well, I do, I do, but that's just me on the weekends with my son or grandson. We've not tried the fishing tournament yet. We've, we've talked about that. Now what we've done is we've added a Christmas party over the last four years. And typically what we do in the past, we do exactly what you'd think somebody would do at Christmas. We go and have a casino party. So gambling and Christmas, just associate yourself so close with each other. This last year we changed it around. And so instead of gambling casino style, we gambled on thoroughbred horses at the racetrack at Remington park in Oklahoma City. We had a great Christmas party. Great, wonderful door prizes we were able to give away to folks there, especially right before Christmas when, you know, you're probably out there shopping for a few gifts to win some from the pipeliner clubs. Not a big deal.

00:24:25 KC Yost
Well, and, and there's. There's no rule that they can't re gift it.

00:24:28 Larry Cumpton
Right. We're not going to check out and see if they have it later, that's for sure. But we had a great time. It was, it was fun. You have a lot of. I want to say we had about 75 or 80 people show up for the Christmas party. And we enjoyed horse racing and gambling on the horses, plus a great meal. And then of course, the entertainment of being around each other and swapping on stories and lies as kind of occurs in the pipeliner business.

00:25:00 KC Yost
That's part of pipelining. I totally understand what you're saying. Totally understand. Well, Larry, I've enjoyed the. The heck out of this conversation. We're starting to run out of time. Is there anything else you want to throw in there or add something, a topic that I might have missed? All the cool stuff that you're doing now, and you guys are growing.

00:25:22 Larry Cumpton
We are in the growth mode. So, you know, if you hadn't signed up for the club this year, please go in and renew your membership. If you're ready to be become a member. Just hit the join button on the website. You're able to do that. The new website will be open probably in about two to three months. That'll help out on that quite a bit. And of course, we're always looking for people to come play golf. April 11th comes around sooner than what we think. So get to the website, sign up for the golf tournament, become a sponsor. Those that would like to have volunteer credits, come volunteer, come help out. You'll get to meet a lot of people, shake a lot of hands, and it's always a great, fun social event, the meetings as well. So please come and participate in the club. We'd love to have you.

00:26:13 KC Yost
Well, I'm tickled that you know 200 golfers. I'm sure you have as many shooters at your, at your clay chutes. And 70 people at a meeting is a nice size meeting. That's, that's all very good. So you guys have made some, some steady progress since we visited last year. I'm, I'm really pleased and, and happy for you guys and what you've done. That's good stuff.

00:26:36 Larry Cumpton
Thank you. Stuff. Thanks for having us. We, we appreciate the opportunity to, to sit down, even if you're having to listen to a boring, boring guy like me explain things from what's going on in Oklahoma. We're, we're certainly appreciative of the opportunity.

00:26:53 KC Yost
Well, I know where 798 is located, so it's, it's important to tap your hat to Oklahoma every once in a while, right?

00:27:03 Larry Cumpton
Please do.

00:27:04 KC Yost
Thank you. Please do. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. So thanks again for taking the time to visit today again. If anyone would like to learn more about the Pipeliners Club of Oklahoma City, you can find them on the web at okcpipeliners.com. That's okcpipeliners.com and Larry, that website still works. Right now you're just going to revamp it during the summertime.

00:27:31 Larry Cumpton
You'll never see it go down. It will, it will just change one day it'll be. The old one will be gone and the new one will be up.

00:27:39 KC Yost
Outstanding. All right, so thanks to all of you for tuning in to this episode of the Energy Pipeline podcast sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for podcast topics, feel free to email me at kc.yost@oggn.com. I also want to thank everyone at the Oil and Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other oggn podcasts at oggn.com this is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week and keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.

00:28:14 Speaker 2
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