Ernest “Ernie” Greere Brooks

Ernie built Venture Pipe & Supply out of the Oklahoma oil patch, and he ran it the way he ran his life: honest, plain, and on his word. He didn’t need a contract to make a deal. He shook your hand, and that was that. If Ernie told you something, you could take it to the bank.

He did well for himself, but you’d never have known it from the way he lived. He had no use for showing off. He spent what he had on other people, and usually before anybody thought to ask.

A quarter for a cold drink

There was a vending machine at the shop. A soda out of it should have cost his guys a couple of dollars. It cost them a quarter, because every month Ernie quietly paid the vending company the difference himself. Most of the men drinking those sodas never knew. He didn’t tell them. That wasn’t the point.

A headstone, and not a word

One of his employees lost someone and couldn’t afford a headstone to mark the grave. Ernie bought it. He didn’t announce it, didn’t let it get around, didn’t wait for gratitude. A family got to visit a marked resting place for someone they loved, and the man behind it kept his name off of it on purpose.

The church van

A church van was too broken down for a youth trip, and the church couldn’t cover a rental. The kids were going to miss out. Then, somehow, the rental was just… handled. Anonymously. The children went on their trip. Ernie never took the credit, and would’ve been embarrassed to.

“It ain’t no thang, man.”

Every so often, someone would find out what he’d done and try to thank him. Ernie would wave it off every time with the same six words:

To him, it really wasn’t a thing. Helping people wasn’t a project or a cause. It was just how you were supposed to live. You saw somebody in a bind, you had it to give, so you gave it, and you didn’t make a fuss about it.

That’s the whole idea behind this foundation. We can’t bring Ernie back, but we can keep doing what he did best: finding the folks who are too proud to ask, and quietly helping them get back on their feet.

His life

Ernie was born January 26, 1956, in Phoenix, Arizona, to Jim C. Brooks and Shirley (Lucke) Brooks. His early years were spent in Casa Grande and then Chandler, Arizona, before his roots took hold in Stonewall, Oklahoma, where he graduated high school in 1974. He stayed proud, all his life, of being named “student of the month” his senior year.

He believed in hard work early. After graduation he took on the wheat harvest, traveling and learning the value of a long day. He married and welcomed his son, and worked at Arrow Pump until the job was lost. That’s when his entrepreneurial spirit showed: in 1989, he started Venture Pipe & Supply in Ratliff City and grew it to seven locations at its height. He kept pushing forward, always sure it would work out.

In 1999 he married Connie Sanders in Wilson, and they made their home in Lindsay, where Venture’s home office settled. Connie was his cherished partner until her passing in 2014. He found love again with Geneva, whom he married in 2016 in Vail, Colorado, and together they made their home between Texas and Oklahoma.

Ernie liked the simple things. He golfed, he traveled every chance he got, and he never missed The Texas Country Reporter. The people who knew him best will remember a good man who did business on a handshake and had a way of making everybody feel welcome.