When Big Oil Does Good Things

When Big Oil Does Good Things
EL DORADO, Ark., June 16, 2008

(CBS) Just like first graders anywhere, the kids in El Dorado, Ark., have started thinking about the big question.

"What do you want to be, Allison, when you grow up?" CBS News correspondent Richard Schlesinger asked.

"Half veterinarian, half artist," Allison said.

But unlike most first graders outside El Dorado, when it comes time to pick a college that teaches half-veterinarians-half-artists, Allison's tuition will be paid for by … the oil company just down the road.

Yes, that's right. Murphy Oil, a Fortune 200 company. Its CEO, Claiborne Deming, decided the kids needed help.

"So I thought, dad-gum it, we need to do something," Deming said.

And dad-gum-it if he didn't find $50 million to make a promise to the people of this small town.

So, every kid who goes through the El Dorado School system and graduates from the high school will be given $6,000 a year for up to five years to help pay for college.

- rest at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/16/eveningnews/main4185453.shtml

 

Claiborne is well compensated but nothing like what the top folks get paid at companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, et al.

I'm a nobody and I've never had a complaint about what I've been paid for the past thirty years.

By the way, here's the video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LLQTU1eRUUM

 

$50,000,000 is a pretty big chunk for a company the size of Murphy Oil, even more so when this program was announced in January 2007(when oil was half the price it is now) and with the company having to pay a huge amount of money back then to repair our refinery that was totally flooded outside of New Orleans.

 

Yes, Murphy Oil is.

And there are lots more charitable contributions that the company makes, including matching made by employees to organizations such as the United Way, March of Dimes, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Union County Animal Protection Society(the local private shelter), helping to fund the building of the new conference center for the city, and lots more.

 

I'm not sure I would classify Murphy Oil as "Big Oil". More like medium oil considering that the super-major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil are something like 30 times larger than Murphy Oil.