Congratulations to our winners of the 2009 Cherokee Horn Scholarship Contest. Three finalists have been awarded the $1000 scholarship.
Special congratulations to Nick Marshalek a junior from L.I.S.D. who won our essay contest. Awards will be presented soon.
Our three finalists, and recipients of $1000 award toward education are:
Nick Marshalek (Essay winner)
William Dean
Morris & Teresa Koeneke
11 Runners Up have been notified and will receive a $50 gift card.
In contrast to double-digit declines in home prices that have left homeowners in other areas of the country upside down in their mortgages, property values in Tarrant County are up 4.6%, according to a May 17, Star-Telegram article. Valuations in high-end neighborhoods have shot up 11%.
The area also has experienced $4.4 billion in new residential and commercial construction. This provides a good indication that businesses and developers think this is the place to ride out the recession and the best place to be when the economy begins bouncing back. Tarrant County also brought in $1.2 billion in taxes on gas drilling, which the article says have kept property values from falling.
Although the unemployment rate has risen in Texas to 6.7% in March 2009, our figures don’t come close to those of Michigan with 12.6% or Oregon with 12.1% or even California’s 11.2%.
In fact, Fort Worth-Arlington and Dallas-Plano-Iriving ranked fourth and fifth among large metro areas in the country to find a job in a recent list of "Best Cities for Jobs" prepared by Joel Kotkin for New Geography and Forbes magazines. The top three were Austin-Round Rock, Houston- Sugar Land-Baytown and San Antonio.
Relocation surveys show that a lot of people forced to leave other states to find employment have relocated to Texas. These people would no doubt be the first to say that Texans have a lot to be thankful for these days. With job opportunities and property values rising, we’re looking like the good old days never left us.
You know, we continue to run across references that claim Cherokee Horn leasing agents work for another company, so we thought that we would set the record straight. The leasing agents for Cherokee Horn work for Cherokee Horn.
In every instance, we determine the geology and viability of an area, check historical title claims, lease the drill sites for Cherokee Horn and then lease residential and commercial tracks in the areas near our drill sites. The money invested in these operations is our money. Our founding financial partners are skilled in natural gas exploration and drilling.
We do partner with other companies on drilling operations in the Barnett Shale. Why? Horizontal drilling is expensive and in some areas of the Barnett Shale riskier than others. Secondly, by bringing in another company to drill, we can spread the financial risk, conserve capital for future leasing and procure additional drill sites.
We are not a "lease-for-hire" operation that can be used by other companies seeking a team to procure leases for their own drill sites. Cherokee Horn leases for Cherokee Horn. Even after we make the decision to approach and to work with a drilling partner as we have with Titan in Denton County, we continue to handle all aspects of the leasing.
Cherokee Horn likes to take an active role in the communities in which it works. Back in December this included a pledge to donate $25 to Christian Community Action for every mineral lease signed during one weekend in mid-December. As a result, this long-standing Lewisville, TX charity received a check $2,500.
Jeff Watts, Founder and President of Cherokee Horn, sets the tone for charitable giving at the company. Both he and his cousin, vice-president Ryan Watts believe in giving as a company and as individuals.
Many organizations, schools, sports teams and families around the community have been touched by Cherokee Horn. In the photo above, the Ansell family was blessed with wrapped gifts from Cherokee Horn, after Lisa’s vehicle (with Christmas gifts in it) was stolen on December 23. “We were surprised and overwhelmed by Cherokee Horn’s generosity,” the exuberant single mother remarked. “The very next day [Cherokee Horn] was here to give us the Christmas I thought we couldn’t have.”
Beyond what they do as a company, Cherokee Horn’s leasing staff will also assist residents who want to donate their bonus money to charity. Although we live in an area that is not as hard hit economically as other parts of the country, there are always organizations here and individual families that need support from the community and its residents.
Maybe we can hope that change with a capital “C” really is beginning. Perhaps the greening of America is at last more than political rhetoric. Let’s believe that not only is our new president in favor of using more natural gas, but that Congress can also really work with him to get some important initiatives in place that will create more immediate uses for our country’s huge natural gas supply.
President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois has been one of Congress’s biggest proponents of compressed natural gas cars. Last summer he introduced legislation that would mandate US automakers to build 10 percent of their fleet with natural gas fueled vehicles by 2018. His bill also included tax credits and other incentives to spread natural gas pumps to filling stations across the country.
The bill has gone nowhere yet, but maybe that’s about to change.
Despite whatever may occur in the future that we can take issue with, it’s quite admirable that a former Illinois Congressman would be a proponent of natural gas as opposed to powering cars with corn. Illinois is in fact one of the top two corn growing states in America.
But life is always full of surprises and this is a good one. Using biofuels may be better than burning foreign oil, but using corn as a biofuel while people starve throughout the world, seems shortsighted. Why should we be turning corn or any other food into fuel for cars now that we have such an abundant of natural gas discoveries. Unlike corn and other food source biofuels, natural gas has only one real purpose and that is power.
More gas vehicles and greater availability of natural gas is a good thing, but supply and demand has always been the key to change in situations such as this. So let’s write our representatives, senators and our new president. Let’s get some demand going in the US to mandate more implementation of natural gas.
Kudos to the City of Dallas for ordering 182 natural gas powered Honda Civic GXs. This is the largest single order to date for the Civic GX. Previously, the city of Oakland, CA purchased 58 for pool vehicle use. And what a car!
Dallas joins Los Angeles and the city of New York as large cities that operate Civic GX fleets. For these fleets, natural gas offers many advantages over conventional fuels, such as lowering harmful emissions and energy consumption and reducing America's reliance on imported oil.
Substantial supplies of natural gas exist in North America and the fuel is typically 25 to 30 percent less expensive than gasoline. The GX is powered by the cleanest internal combustion engine in the world and meets the most stringent tailpipe emissions standard in existence.
The vehicle is certified by the California Air Resources Board to the Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) standard and is the first and only light-duty SULEV available outside of California. The GX actually produces nearly 60 percent less hydrocarbons than the SULEV requirements.
The Civic GX is assembled exclusively at Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc. in East Liberty, Ohio. The engine and transmission are assembled at Honda's engine plant in Anna, Ohio.
An American made car that can make use of America’s abundant natural gas resources now there’s an idea that needs time on the agenda of every city council, especially across North Texas that sets atop abundant stores of Barnett Shale natural gas.
Let’s take a moment for “What If?” What if, instead of a green-eyed monster that fueled land owner greed, name calling and other ugly behavior, the Barnett Shale were regarded as a bountiful windfall, an unexpected source of greater prosperity, in short, an economic blessing for the area and its residents.
According to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce the Barnett Shale employs three times more people than the area’s largest single employer, American Airlines does. The Barnett Shale is responsible for the paychecks of some 83,000 individuals while American supports only 25,457. This fact alone should bring the economic impact into perspective for those who haven’t given much thought to the bigger picture.
Beyond the usual focus on bonus income and royalty income there is this phenomenal new infrastructure of employment dollars constantly flowing from Barnett Shale sources. Without these shale revenues the counties in this area might be feeling the same bind that others across the country are now experiencing as the US economy reels from an historic economic crisis.
Let’s break it down even further. A single gas well requires 40 or more employees and creates $1.75 million in wages. This does not include the jobs created and wages paid to workers employed by oil field companies that provide services to the rig. It also does not include the money that flows into title companies and other businesses including hotels and restaurants as well as into commercial and residential construction. The latter two areas saw increases of 22% and 3% respectively from the previous year.
According to a report by economist Dr. Ray Perryman, projections through 2015 forecast that natural gas from the Barnett Shale will create 108,000 jobs and will contribute $10.5 billion annually to the economy.
At the end of the day, when the sun goes down on the Barnett Shale, it’s been a good day for the greater good.
