Be a Barnabas: How One Act of Kindness Changed Everything

Keegen Stewart: Good morning, LCU.
Here are some ways that we can describe our chapel speaker this morning.
Successful lawyer, president of that law firm, entrepreneur, hotel developer, community leader,
LCU, well, LCC alum from the class of 1980.
But you can also describe him like this, disciple maker, connector, someone who is missional, someone who empowers others, follower of Christ.
This morning, we get the pleasure to hear from the chairman of the LCU Board of Trustees, Alan Rhodes.
And he's excited to share with you this morning.
His message is going to be about how today's actions matter.
Allen is passionate about the LCU mission and he truly is a champion for our school wherever he goes.
Please help me welcome Mr. Alan Rhodes.
Alan Rhodes: Thanks, Keegan.
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be with you today.
It's a privilege to serve the LCU community and to be on the board.
to our LCU employees, thank you for the fabric you create. Thank you for the fabric you maintain.
To our students, have fun. This is the best time of your life. I'm going to tell you a story that
took 24 years to develop. My story is about a relationship I developed while I was at Lubbock
Christian and 24 years later it really blossomed and I didn't see it coming because I hadn't
maintained the relationship so it's a pretty fun story. Yes I'm a lawyer mostly I'm a deal guy now
in the 90s I was a public education lawyer and a public education lawyer usually the school
district is the largest employer in town, so you have employee issues, and when you tell somebody
to find another job, you usually have created an enemy. When you deal with cheerleaders' mothers,
and cheerleaders' mothers always know precisely the right decision that should be made, and when
you have to straighten one of those out, or when you deal with the ag teacher, you just are beginning
to create a few people who hold some resentments towards you, but that just kind of goes with the
territory of being a lawyer. And I kind of migrated out of education in 1998 and became the deal guy.
I had a dream job in Amarillo. We had Baptist St. Anthony's. And yes, that was a partnership between
a group of Catholics and a group of Baptists. So imagine representing that board for 15 years
Because there are a few things that they could disagree on.
But I'm back to saying actions during my time at Lubbock Christian had a dramatic change in my life.
So I'd closed a big deal in Dalhart, Texas.
I think it was a 14,000 acre farm that had sold and a complicated transaction.
and at the end the realtor said,
Rosie, every time there's a European in the area
looking for a place to dairy farm,
he's with two knuckleheads from Hereford.
And I said, well, let's get to know the knuckleheads.
And we met them on a Sunday night
for a steak at K-Bob's in Canyon.
I reached out my hand to shake hands
and Shannon Wilburn shook my hand and grabbed my arm.
And it was real clear he wasn't going to let go for a minute.
Now, I said he was a knucklehead
and it's kind of like the conversations that Dr. Rick has
that we kind of see on TV now.
These two guys were just goofy.
Goofy, goofy.
And so I'm standing there and Shannon's got my arm in his hand,
shaking his hand, he's grabbing my arm.
He said, are you really Alan Rhodes?
I said, yeah, I don't know.
He said, from Bovina.
I said, yeah, from Bovina.
I've been looking for you for 10 years.
Okay, now I told you about developing those enemies,
and him grabbing my arm made me think I must have had,
I must have fired his mother.
Or, you know, because my mind is just racing,
saying this isn't a good deal.
And when he says, I've been looking for you for 10 years,
I'm thinking, oh, brother, I've got some trouble here on my hands tonight.
This isn't going well.
I said, why have you been looking for me for 10 years?
He said, you remember 1978?
So I would have been between intermediate accounting as a sophomore
and heading to the other accounting classes as a junior.
Sure, I remember 78.
He said, yeah, after wheat harvest, you started working on my uncle's construction crew.
and I was the 10-year-old, and it was my job to get you guys a soda for your 10 o'clock break
and a soda for your 3 o'clock break, and it was my job to clean up the messes,
and when I had a mess that was too big for me to clean up, you would come help me,
and on your last day, you took me and you bought me a hamburger at Kelso's Drive-In.
So I've been looking for you for 10 years to thank you for teaching me how to treat a 10-year-old.
how can I pay you back? I said you don't owe me anything that was just a job for me in the summer
and we were rocking along at the end of the program I gave him my business card said you know
if any of those Dutch guys are around give him my card I'd like to help them. Ten days later I was
in front of Lawrence Schilderink who was going to build a dairy at Demet, Texas and he was the first
families. That's the house we built. There's me as a sophomore. And these are stars for each of
the 25 families. My specialty was helping farmers move mostly from Denmark, mostly to Texas,
although I had some in eastern Oklahoma and some in southwest Kansas. So if you're in the Netherlands,
you can have 60 cows. And the successful ones would then monetize and many of them moved to
Denmark where you could have 300 cows and the successful ones then wanted to live the American
dream what we get to live and so over from 2002 to 2008 I always had a Dutch farmer in my pickup
with me helping them get located. I got to know the lawyers in Denmark and in 2011 all as a result
of my relationship with the dairy industry, which was the result of a relationship I created
as a LCU student.
Got to know the lawyers in Denmark in 2011, they asked me to speak at their international
convention in Amsterdam.
I went and spoke.
The next year they said, or at the end they said, "We voted and next year we're going
to come to Amarillo and have our conference there."
I was in Copenhagen that November and I said, "Okay, when are you coming or how many of
coming and they said well you told us a bus at hold 48 so that's when we stopped signups
and we get there April 30th and we're staying to May 7th put us a program together so just the
doors that have been open for me as a result of that have been amazing I closed a transaction in
2015 in March. It was about a $75 million value of the exchange. And I thought, you know, I need
to have a closing dinner. And I had a thought. And at the last minute, I invited a love-up broker
who had had a tiny piece of the transaction. And that fall, we got a call and he said,
"Hey, I think you're the right guy to represent my client
who's interested in buying the Wagner."
So the Wagner is south of Vernon, Texas.
It's 512,000 acres, largest ranch in the United States
under a single fence, started being assembled in 1848.
The family was unlucky.
Every time they drilled for water, they hit oil,
ended up with a private refinery.
It has two lakes on it.
You can see those on this map, Lake Diversion, Lake Kemp.
That provides water for the city of Wichita Falls.
Outside their gate, they have their most famous quarter horse buried upside down, Poco Bueno, a little good.
Electra was Tom Wagner's favorite daughter.
They ended up renaming the town that is between Vernon and Wichita Falls, Electra.
She also had the Buick Electra 225 named after her and this jet.
So a famous family.
Her niece was a famous sculptress.
That's a picture of Soap Suds and Will Rogers that's over on the Tech campus,
and she was the sculptress of that.
In 1992, the family was in a fuss.
There were two 50-50 owners,
and so one of them sued for the appointment of a receiver,
And there had been a receiver appointed from 1993 until 2015.
And about 2011, Judge Dan Mike Bird said,
I'm not leaving this case on my docket.
I'm getting rid of this, and we're going to find a buyer for the ranch.
And that is when I became acquainted with this fellow.
His name is Stan Kroenke.
He's now 47th on the Forbes 400 list.
worth $21.3 billion.
He's married into the Walton family,
and he picked out the locations for all the Walmarts around the country,
and he would keep the adjacent real estate and build strip centers on it.
Now, when you have a guy like this, you wonder what his toys are,
and he's got a pretty interesting set of toys.
The Los Angeles Rams, they've won the Super Bowl.
the Denver Nuggets who've won the NBA championship, the Colorado Avalanche, they've won the Stanley Cup,
the Arsenal, the soccer folks in the room would be familiar with the Arsenal and the Rapids. So
all as a result of me being nice to a ten-year-old while I was an LTU student,
I got in the dairy business that put me into Big Ag and
and that then put me in front of Stan Kroenke and let me help him. The asking price on the ranch was
$725 million. The two owners wouldn't speak to each other, their lawyers didn't speak to each other,
and it was a very interesting situation to negotiate. Governor Perry had said it would
be impossible for anybody to buy the Wagner Ranch, and at our first meeting we walked in
And there were five of us and 38 people representing the sellers.
And I thought, Governor Perry might be right.
This might be impossible to get done.
It's called the deal of the century.
You know, mostly to get in the Dallas Morning News, you either got to be a famous athlete, die, or be a criminal.
But here's where we made the Sunday Dallas Morning News with this.
So what I'd say to you today is be a Barnabas.
Be an encourager.
Remember the story in Acts where Barnabas took Saul, the apostles,
and said they were fearful of him.
They were scared of him.
And Barnabas made that interaction.
Be a Barnabas.
Remember how Barnabas believed in John Mark,
and when Paul said he can't go on the journey with us,
Barnabas said well I'll go this direction
I'll be an encourager
I see something in John Mark
so play that role in your life
let's be dismissed with a prayer
Father I thank you for this university
and I thank you for the fabric that our employees create
Father please bless our students
make their paths straight
in Christ's name, Amen
Thank y'all