I ran into Ray Frehlick today at a ribbon-cutting for the new computerized tomography (CT) scanner at Estevan’s St. Joseph’s Hospital.
I bugged him a bit about how I’ve seen him in almost every other media, since he’s been quoted numerous times in recent weeks with regards to the hardships the oilpatch around Estevan has been going through. “No one else is left,” he said with a laugh.
Indeed, it seemed in February the rest of the Canadian media woke up to the hardship our oilpatch has been enduring. The business editor from the Leader Post (who usually wears a suit to work, I wear jeans and steel-toed boots) was dispatched to Estevan. Another writer for the Star Phoenix found their way to Kindersley. CTV sent a reporter to Lloydminster. They asked me several times for a Skype interview, but I thought it would be better if they talked to people on the ground there, rather than interview another journalist like myself.
Several of these pieces were quite good, I thought. Postmedia reprinted them in many of its publications. But they seem a little late. I’ve been writing about the downturn for well over a year, now.
Yes, the oilpatch is hurting. Its time people noticed. But there’s something else to take note of.
The CT scanner saw leading donations from Ron and Shirley Carson ($500,000), Ray and Doris Frehlick ($155,000), Kelly and Arlene Lafrentz ($100,000) and Mel Grimes and family ($100,000), all people who have been successful in the oilpatch, and continue to give back.
This is just part of what a healthy oilpatch does – it gives back. It’s not just jobs and taxes, but CT scanners.
I hope those other media folks pick up on that, too, when they leave the big cities to find out what it’s like out here.
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I just wanted to pass along a thank you and a good luck to our outgoing publisher, Brant Kersey. Brant has been publisher of this publication since it was established back in the spring of 2008, when the Estevan Mercury’s Pipeline supplement (and formerly a stand-alone paper of its own in the 1980s) was merged with Lloydminster-based Pipeline News to become this provincial oilpatch newspaper. In many ways, he has been the father of this reborn publication. (Peter Ng, now retired, would be the grandfather.)
Brant has allowed me to run all over the countryside, photographing, learning and writing about the oilpatch. He filled the publisher’s role to be a support, and occasional foil, to the editorial team, letting us basically do our thing and being there when needed.
His idea of a monthly focus was a stroke of genius. It provided a reason for Pipeline News to visit all segments of the oilfield, learning a little more about each along the way. That led to me knocking on many doors, first in the Lloydminster and Kindersley oilpatch in 2008, and then the southeast ever since. The monthly focus not only gave us a reason to visit people, it gave people a reason to want to be in the paper; to be a part of our Saskatchewan story. If our focus is on trucking this month, and you’re a trucker, you want to be a part of it.
In the spring and summer of 2015 he took several months off to buy and operate his own oilfield services company, Pride Upkeep Ltd., along with his brother-in-law, Dustin Ng. He returned to this newspaper for the fall and winter, but this March will mean he’s heading out, with the intention of spraying leases on a permanent basis. It takes a lot of courage to get into the oilfield services just when most people are looking for a way out. I wish them well.
Hopefully he keeps a copy of Pipeline News in his truck. Godspeed, good sir.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
