History

Profiles from the Patch... with Art Odden

From popcorn wagon to drilling contractor

It was 1945, the war was over and thousands of restless young men were being discharged from military service. They had been places and seen things that would forever change their lives. Many were unable to go back to the jobs they had before the war because they no longer existed. So they roamed across our great country looking for something to do and somewhere they would fit in. Two such young men, newly discharged from the Navy, left Seattle, driving a Buick and towing an old van that had been made into a popcorn wagon. They stopped wherever a crowd gathered for any reason and sold their popcorn and candy. With the money they made, they continued their odyssey.

Red Ranck (left) and Tommy Fey hit Cut Bank with their popcorn van in 1945. When Red went to work on the rigs, Lorraine was making more money selling popcorn.

On July 4, 1945, they stopped in Polson, Mont., where a rodeo was in progress. Business was good and the profits rolled in. They were beginning to feel like civilians again and it was a good feeling. At a terrible cost, freedom had once again been restored to their great country and they were excited about returning home and seeing more of what they had fought for.

Plans were almost non-existent in their lives. They just let each day’s events happen and when they tired on one place they moved on to the next.

Cut Bank, Mont., looked like a good place to spend some time so they headed east to look it over. Neither man had the slightest notion that his stop would change one of their lives very dramatically, but it surely did. For it was in Cut Bank that Leslie “Red” Ranck found the something he was looking for and he’s still here.

The remaining days of summer, Red Ranck and Tommy Fey sold popcorn on the streets of Cut Bank and made themselves a comfortable living. They made the most of every minute of the long hot days and cool star-lit nights. It was a summer that could never happen again for either of the young men and the memories of it would bring smiles to their faces when they talk about them years later.

When the blustery days of fall made their appearance, Tommy was ready to head back to Seattle, Wash., but Red wasn’t. He had found a pretty young lady that was more important to him than seeing the rest of the world.

Tommy returned to Washington with the Buick and Red stayed behind with the popcorn wagon. When the cold weather forced Red to park the popcorn wagon he went to work in the oilfield for Union Oil. His boss was Lloyd Sandell, the pretty lady’s dad.

Leslie and Lorraine were married a year later on Dec. 1, 1946. The following year they had a beautiful baby girl, Bonnie. Now Red was here to stay. He was too broke to move on.

Lorraine had taken over the popcorn wagon in the warm summer months, selling on the streets during the day and then moving up in front of the movie theatre during show time. At that time, they didn’t sell popcorn in the movie theaters, so business was excellent. “I made more money selling popcorn and candy than Red did in the oilfield.” Lorraine said with a smile. Red didn’t deny her brag, instead he said, “I sometimes wondered if with a few long range plans the popcorn business might have been a more prosperous venture.”

The popcorn business had to be sidelined shortly thereafter when Red’s line of work demanded he travel. He worked in Canada and all over the Highline area in the coming months. A house trailer was their home and in one year they moved 10 times. In 1957 Red and Lorraine got a farmout agreement from Union Oil and leased some state land along with it. To keep the leases and comply with the farmout agreement they had to drill a well. So Red and Norman Walters started drilling with one of Lloyd Sandell’s cable rigs. When the money ran out, Norman had to go to work elsewhere and Lorraine took over his job. She became a tool dresser, truck driver and anything else Red asked her to be. Together they finished the well and it brought in three or four barrels a day—enough to keep the lease.

Red started his own oilfield in 1957 with his 36L cable rig owned by his father-in-law. Red's wife, Lorraine, helped bring the project through by acting as tool dresser, truck driver and just about anything else.

Seven years later they formed a partnership with Charles Austin and he drilled a well 330 feet from Red’s first well. It came in at a thousand barrels a day. “We sure could have used that back in 1957.” Red said with a big grin. Red teamed up with Mike Matz and Abby Waggoner in 1961 to form General Well Service. They started out with a double pole Wichita-Tex and then added a Cardwell double pole they bought from Union Oil. Later they picked up a single pole Carter.

Nineteen years later Red and Mike sold General Well to Baltic Drilling out of Calgary, Alberta. The company at that time consisted of two drilling rigs, and seven service rigs and employed about 80 people.

Oilfield work isn’t the only thing Red has done in his lifetime. As a young man in high school he spent his summers working in the woods near Everett, Wash. After school he became a high rigger on the spar trees that were used to pull in logs from surrounding cut blocks. From there he moved on to construction in California where once again he went to work as a high-rigger iron worker. The firm Red worked for landed a contract from the Navy to build air strips in the pacific and Red was off again.

He built air bases in Hawaii and was working on the island of Midway when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They were moved back to Hawaii that Christmas and Red joined the Navy. He spent his tour in the Navy on a Tin Can. Of all the many jobs he held down, Red said he thought working in the oil field was his favorite. He said there really isn’t any secret to his success, he just had a good partner and a family that backed him in his endeavor. Red makes it sound easy.

As for retirement, Red hasn’t any firm plans. He is staying on as general manager at General Well for a year and after that… he’s not sure. He has some horses to look after and he might travel a little but he’ll have to wait and see.

I think we will see a lot more of Red Ranck around the oilfield in the years to come. It’s been his life for a long time and he loves it too much to walk away from it entirely. Cut Bank has survived difficult times and is alive and growing because of people like Leslie and Lorraine Ranck. I wonder if anybody that saw Red Ranck and Tommy Fey drive into town in 1945 pulling a popcorn wagon gave Red much of a chance of becoming a leading citizen in the community.

Ranck Heads O&G Group

Ready to move into the remodeled Gunlikson-Ranck Building in Cut Bank are Dale E. Larsen, new owner of General Well Service; Rich Gunlikson, CPA; Larry Newell, vice president of General Well; and Leslie C. "Red" Ranck of Ranck Oil Co. Gunlikson and Ranck sold General Well to Larsen's Baltic Drilling, Ltd., earlier this year. With General Well as a tenant, the G-R Building has scheduled a Sept. 26 grand opening.

Red Ranck of Cut Bank was elected president of the Montana Oil and Gas Association at the group’s annual meeting in Cut Bank. Ranck moved up from vice president of the organization, which is composed of independent oil and gas businessmen.

Elected vice president was Gus Coolidge of Shelby and voted onto the board of directors were Coolidge and Bruce Warner. Other board members include C.C. Potter, Jerry Branch, Carl Iverson, Darrell Lawrence, Ed Vander Pas and Red Ranck. Vickie Murphy continues as secretary-treasurer.

Carl Iverson of Shelby summed up the organization’s first effort at lobbying during last winter’s state legislature. Senate Bill 16, which requires written notice before coming onto a landowner’s property, was watered down from the original version but “is still ambiguous and might take a court case to decide.”

An association effort to reduce minerals severance taxes passed in the House but died in the Senate – partly due to opposition from both the Mountain States Oil and Gas Association and landowner groups. Iverson noted that in Glacier County, the Oil and Gas industry provides about 60 percent of the county’s tax revenues, and 46 percent of the tax moneys for Toole County.

In the year and half that the Montana Oil and Gas Association has been in operation Iverson said, “We made people realize that there’s somebody else operating in the state besides the major oil companies."