Pete Cokinos' father was ambitious and arrived on Ellis Island from Greece in 1912. Enthralled by the Spindletop oil boom in Beaumont, Texas, he went there to start a new life. But the oil industry was not for P.D. Cokinos, and he toiled in the grocery business instead.

   Octogenarian oilman Pete Cokinos is a native of Beaumont, Texas. He learned the importance of hard work at his father's small grocery store. Although the family strived to send their five children to college, they did not have tuition for them; so one summer, Pete earned $94 selling cold drinks at a stadium enough to get him to A&M.

   After graduation, Cokinos worked as an engineer trainee and became acquainted with the local Railroad Commission district engineer. He later contacted the RRC for a job and became the district engineer for their gas division in the Houston-Beaumont area. He left RRC in 1962, determined to try his luck at drilling. After drilling nine wildcats, all were dry but one. He got along just knowing what to buy.

   Pete Cokinos was a risk-taker and bought wells about to be abandoned. He made them flow! He and his partner made a deal, buying some production in Louisiana for $27,000 after hearing Texaco was going to drill a well on a salt dome nearby. Two years later, the partners sold their acreage for close to $2 million . . . and those wells are still productive today.

   Cokinos says that he misses the old days of the risk-taking independents. "Scouting's down to nothing now. The major companies don't give farm-outs like they used to, and the Tax Code of 1986 changed the way financing is raised. The independent used to depend on far-out acreage from undrilled major company prospects. It was high-risk venture that funded Spindletop and high-risk venture capital that funded the greatest treasure ever found in the western hemisphere the 6 billion barrel East Texas field."

   He still does consulting work and doesn't plan to ever retire. In fact, he's as feisty as ever. He runs a mile every morning and drinks three glasses of water when he wakes up. He eats oatmeal for breakfast and has quit eating roast beef. With over half a century invested in the energy business, Cokinos said he is impressed with modern technological breakthroughs like 3-D seismic. "It appears to me that 3-D seismic is coming in handy in areas that have ben overlooked," he said. "But the energy business is a big gamble anyway you look at it."

   According to Mr. Cokinos, he's done practically everything he wanted . . . but he still has some prospects he wants to drill. Cokinos and his wife, Lula, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997. They have four grown children.

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