Page 4 ■ Thursday, February 23, 2012


BAKKEN NEWS Corvettes accelerating in the oil patch


By LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune


WILLISTON — The oil patch has be-


come a mythical place, where almost any story that spins out of there fi nds its way into the mainstream passed on from one person to the next. A good example is the story of the el-


derly couple, or maybe it was a rig hand, or maybe it was two emergency room nurses sharing quarters, at any rate, whoever it was found themselves with extraordinarily high heating bills at their trailer house. The story goes, they (or maybe he,


or maybe it was those nurses) called the electrical provider who inspected the premises and discovered that two oil workers had dragged in sleeping bags and were living under the trailer. These heat-seeking desperate strangers had cut an opening into the duct work to force warmed air into the dark, skirted space below. Do trailers even have forced-air heat- ing? This detail is not an important part of the oil patch legend, which was said to have happened either in Killdeer, or Williston or somewhere around Wat- ford City, depending on who’s telling the story.


The last time this story was passed


along, a phone call to the guy whose wife allegedly heard it from her sister-in-law, who supposedly got it directly from the people who knew the elderly couple in the trailer, turned up a cold trail after the fi rst guy. Add the power of the Internet and if


a boomtown legend doesn’t get taller, it most certainly gets wider. A new version fl ew from computer to


computer last month, reportedly a sum- mary of “notes of interest from the oil patch” gathered during a meeting of the state’s Sheriffs and Deputies Association.


LAUREN DONOVAN/Tribune


Patrick Murphy, owner of Murphy Motors Inc. of Williston, won’t say whether he’s the top Corvette dealership in the upper Midwest, but he will concede that No. 1 status in the “area,” whatever that is. He said a fl ush of oil money in the region helps, but his longstanding experience with the luxury sports car helps more.


There is really no tracing the docu- ment back to a verifi able source, but the thread of who and where it was forward- ed from computer to computer is fasci- nating in and of itself, jumping to people out of state, who sent it back. Among 35 points in the summary —


one was that Williston police are getting more calls than ever of drunk people try- ing to get into the wrong house — was one that really stood out. This was No. 29 on the list: “The Wil-


liston General Motors dealership has now become the number-one seller of


Lots Available Now in Sidney, Fairview & Watford City For Immediate Occupancy!


Corvettes in the upper Midwest.” This seemed likely enough, given the


new wealth that fl ows from all the new oil wells being punched in out there. It also seemed verifi able enough, by simply taking a swing over to the deal-


Cont. on next page


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