Posts by Thomas Hill III

The Tamarisk tree, First Americans, and Elzéard Bouffier. When seemingly unrelated things have a connection, it means I’m supposed to be paying attention. Four hundred years, seven generations, or a single lifetime. These are all long periods of time—long enough that it is hard to keep in view the changes that will occur. In church…

This musing is an abbreviated version of my keynote at last week’s RECON23, the Annual Leadership Conference of The Kimmell Foundation. Make plans now to attend RECON24 on October 18, 2024. When I was young, I loved fire, explosions, and engineering—the “knowing how stuff works” thing. So, naturally, I got interested in model rockets. There…

When I speak at events, I like to move around. Recently, I was speaking, and when I walked around in front of the podium, the sound system started making a horrible, ear-splitting whine. That’s feedback. The word first came into use in 1909 when Nobel laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun used the term as a noun…

If cars were more dangerous, we would drive more safely. At least that is what Gordon Tullock postulated in his famous thought experiment which became known as “Tullock’s Spike.” Tullock suggested that if we were serious about reducing car related casualties, we should install a spike in the center of the steering wheel of all…

Anyone who knows me knows I am an Oklahoma State Cowboys fan. As our alma mater says, I am “loyal and true.” Singing that along with more than 50,000 other Cowboys Saturday night, then watching our beloved team fall to the visitors, reminded me what it means to be loyal and true. Loyalty is often…

I recently rewatched the 1956 film, Forbidden Planet. The first time I saw this movie as a young boy, Robbie, the robot, would have been my favorite character if not for the appearance of Anne Francis. Anyway, Robbie was the amazing result of genesis futuristic science and technology, including AI and matter synthesis and generation, all…

“You can be comfortable if you don’t mind being average. The price of greatness is discomfort.” A dear friend said that to me over breakfast one morning. I was most likely complaining about the burden of responsibility that accompanies my leadership position and he, in his very direct way, responded with that. He is right.…

It fascinates me when people write or say things as fact when, in fact, they are not. I was reading an article about recent Supreme Court rulings which stated that with a stroke of the pen the Supreme Court had “saddled more than 40 million people with $430 billion in debt.” Regardless of your opinion…

I was in Dothan for a wedding. That’s Dothan, AL, not the Biblical one. The rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception took place in an event venue that used to be the Covington Planter Company factory. As I sat in what used to be a manufacturing facility eating wedding cake, I was struck by the way people…

The right to vote is significant because it allows each of us to participate in deciding what the future we will live in will be like. The accumulation of votes decides who will represent us and, often, how the issues that define our society are determined. While some may argue that a single vote doesn’t…