LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Skooners Bar and Grill held one last hurrah Sunday night before closing its doors for good.<\/p>\n
Mark Garland, the owner of what many have come to see as an oasis in central Lubbock, died this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my favorite parts about Mark is he called himself a captain,\u201d said Cousin Morin, beverage director for West Family Hospitality. \u201cA captain makes sure that everyone on the boat is safe. Makes sure that at some point in time we see dry land, knows the purpose of why we\u2019re out there. But more importantly, keeps us in a steady direction. That\u2019s what I think I value most about him: he was a captain. He kept us in a solid direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garland was born in Huntington Beach, California. He worked as a pit boss in Las Vegas when Jim Bob Jordan, of Lubbock\u2019s Jordan family, recruited him to the Hub City in 1984.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe describes this tall, big cowboy sitting across from him, big ol\u2019 huge bucket hat, just oozing Texas, right,\u201d Morin said. \u201cAnd the guy kind of kept watching him for a couple of hours and finally the guy approaches him and tells him, I\u2019ve been watching you all night, the way you move, the way you keep an eye on things. I need that. I need that in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garland spent the next 12 years working for the Jordan family before branching out on his own with Whaler\u2019s Bay, Scuttlebutts and eventually Skooners in 1996.<\/p>\n
Skooners became a beloved Lubbock institution, offering cold beer, massive burgers and what many have described as a home away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom his days back in Vegas to all of his catering to everything he did here, he was just trying to really kind of maintain a spot for people to belong,\u201d Morin said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times I would watch Mark literally see somebody that he\u2019d noticed having a bad day, or he caught a difference in their habits. And that was a day that maybe drinks were comped. Or that\u2019s a day that maybe, maybe we feed them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garland set people up for success and helped inspire others to follow their dreams. Morin is one of those people. He did jobs and gigs for Garland and eventually went down the path of owning his own businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a brief moment in time, a family builds itself, takes care of itself, and graduates,\u201d Morin said. \u201cAnd the next class comes in. And I think that was awesome. And all those years, I can\u2019t tell you how many different classes I see move through it. And they all independently have different success stories. And it\u2019s built basically upon the culture that was allowed to exist there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garland was also an Ironman athlete in the 1990s. He ran marathons, biked and swam. <\/p>\n
He continued to cater Ironman competitions in Lubbock even after he left that community. Morin says that\u2019s a testament to his character.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of where I really started to see him as a person,\u201d Morin said. \u201cEven after he left the [Ironman] community, he still took care of them so well. We watched him go above and beyond for the friendships he\u2019d made.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Mark\u2019s presence was often read wrong because he was a quiet man who stood in the back of the room with his arms crossed,\u201d Morin said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he was judging. I honestly think he was just kind of loving what he saw.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garland leaves behind three daughters and a wife, Michelle.<\/p>\n
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.<\/p>\n
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