Dad and mom lived their dream of owning a farm and livestock. Now it was Pat and I’s time to start our life dreams.
In May 1957, Pat and I left the farm and moved to El Dorado, Kansas. I went to work for the Kansas State Highway engineers, doing surveys and testing on the new road they were building from El Dorado to Leon, Kansas. We would do sampling of the gravel and clay and different sizes of gravel to be put on the roadbed to see if they were the correct amount of each size of gravel and enough clay to hold the gravel together. I worked for the engineer department until September 1957, at which time I went to work for Skelly oil refinery in El Dorado.
I was hired the same day as another guy by the name of Bob Duncan. Bob and I were the first of 25 new employees hired in the next 45 days. The first two weeks of our employment Bob and I spent cutting weeds with the idiot stick. I thought I didn’t know they made gasoline out of weeds and our sweat. After about one year of assent to work at the boiler House where they made steam for the refinery and cooling water for the cooling towers to keep the equipment cool and air for instruments. I worked there for the next 10 years. My good friend Johnny Ramp worked for Skelly but at a different part of the refinery and we both worked shift work on the days off we would cut firewood in the wintertime to sell. In the summer we would haul hay.
I had an opportunity to buy into a fertilizer plant after 11 years working for Skelly. I quit and became part owner of Mears Fertilizer in El Dorado.
We built the fertilizer business and had to hire two more employees. We sold liquid fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia. I saw a lot of the farmers around the area. After three years we built a process unit on the semi and started making our own fertilizer as well as converting acid, and hydrous ammonia and water. Of the three ingredients of an inline reactor would produce a 10-34-0. Fertilizer product after each tank was filled we sampled and sent to the state we never had a failure on the product we sent. After two years being the minor owner it looked like I was going to be away from home running this machine all over the Midwest so I sold my part of the business and went back to work for Skelly oil refinery . I was the first employee who had quit to be rehired in the last 20 years. I felt quite lucky to get back to work where all my friends are. I did not go back to my old job at Skelly Oil as there weren’t any openings at that time and I went to part of the refinery that was called light oils I worked there for about two years doing jobs that the operators units did. While working at Skelly I ran for county commissioner of Butler County District 2. I won the election and took office in January 1977. I continued working for the refinery while serving on the county commissioner job. The county commissioners job we would meet one day a week but actually it consumed more than two or three days a week. I worked with a bunch of guys at the refinery where I could trade my days for their nights and continue working for Skelly also.
I was promoted over the next several years and retired in July 1992 as unit Forman in the chemical department with 25 employees.
