As many of you will recall, Saint John’s was gifted a portion of the Minnie Wente Estate, which included mineral rights on land in Weld County. We extended drilling rights to Noble Energy. We are a part of a seventeen-tract drilling area.

A brief history of how these mineral rights came to Saint John's: it started with Louie Wente, who received his interest by a U.S. patent in 1911. In 1946, he conveyed the surface portion and reserved the entire mineral interest. Subsequently a portion of the mineral rights were conveyed to other family members and through estates a part was given to Saint John’s.

We are in the process of clearing up legal matters which occurred throughout all of these transactions and have engaged a local attorney to assist with cleaning up some of the questionable conveyances.

At this time, Noble is extracting oil from this area and we will soon know to what extent this will benefit Saint John’s. The gift is very restrictive and can only be used for scholarship-type uses and possibly our organ. Our attorney is looking into the possibility of modifying these restrictions to allow us to use the funds in other areas.

As we move through this process we will continue to update you.

The mission of the Foundation is to receive gifts, memorials, insurance proceeds, stock and other financial documents in order to provide funds for needed projects and missions within the Church.