Page 97 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021- Online Magazine

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Korean War

“Ralph,” he had said, “if you think an ol' boy from
Stonewall County could go down there and run that
bank, I might be interested.” Ralph Riddel was a
banker in Aspermont and son of the man who had
first hired Elwood. That personal connection was
all it took. “They had little enough sense to offer me
that job, so I took it,” he said with a smile. He was 37
when they made the move.

In ’55, he married his beloved wife, Reva. (They’re
still married.) All four of their children—Leigh,
Kathy, Laurie, and Jim—were born by the time they
moved to Lamesa. From there, he was one promotion
away from the position he holds today, President of
He was stationed in Camp Crawford, a former Lamesa National Bank. That promotion came in ’73.
Japanese dairy located on Japan’s northernmost
island, Hokkaido. He created codes for He has been a loyal citizen and a generous patriarch
communications between units stationed in Japan. of his small community in Lamesa, becoming, in
“Just another job,” he called it. He left for home
in ‘53, though the War never really left the Korean
Peninsula. The cease-fire agreement in ’53 was no
peace treaty, after all. If asked whether or not the
War ever left him, he often repeated: “I was the
same ol' Texas boy when I got back as when I left.”
The line between steady and stubborn is a thin
one, and it no doubt runs right through him. It
takes a certain stubbornness to be consistent, after
all. Perhaps he learned consistency from filing
or banking or farming, but most likely, Elwood’s
resolve came from the calamitous times he was
born into. The howling winds of the Dust Bowl
lodged something deep in the American soul.
The omnipresent grit and thrift that emerged was
formed by the scourge of scarcity and the horrors of
world war. The survivors of these disasters bore the
children who would fight the Korean War. Elwood
Freeman is one of those, and he is, above all, steady,
unflappable – dedicated to doing the best he can,
that which he thinks is right.
Character is one thing, good fortune another. He
speaks often of just how fortunate he was to be
in the right place at the right time and to know
the right people. In ’66, about nine years after
he graduated from Texas Tech with a degree in
Finance, he happened to be at Lubbock National
Bank when a spot as Executive Vice President
opened up in Lamesa.

Lubbock Senior Link 97