Sidney "Riptide" McMingus

Sidney "Riptide" McMingus is born in Effervescence, Texas, with an enlarged heart measuring two times the size of the average newborn at the time — a feature that would come to define him in both spirit and physiognomy.

At the age of eight, Riptide is awarded Most Obtuse in a statewide mathematics competition, catching the keen eyes of Pinkerton Detective Agency scouts and marking his first brush with national recognition.

Two weeks after his eleventh birthday, Riptide declines an early commit offer from the Pinkertons, electing instead to serve his community by taking a position at the Effervescence bank — where he works tirelessly to remind local farmers to pay their mortgages.

At fourteen, Riptide is faced with an impossible choice: evict his parents and seven siblings from their family farm, or no longer work at the bank. His resolve — and his unshakable conviction that financial contracts be upheld at any cost — would foreshadow the principled business philosophy that continues to guide IBRGBC today.

Riptide relocates to New York City, accepting a position as a recruiter with the US Military. Over the ensuing four years he will enlist over 700 Serbians, drawn largely from the meatpacking plants of the greater metropolitan region.

Upon returning to Texas, Riptide takes a position as a Kicker/Spitter for the United States' first private prison — a role that would spark his lifelong passion for free enterprise. He would remain in the position for nearly three decades, a tenure unparalleled in the field.

During this same period, Riptide also devoted considerable time to volunteer work with the Pinkerton Detective Agency. His duties included befriending local union organizers and, once their guard was down, encouraging them into violation of any number of the so-called "social cohesion" laws of the time — chief among them interrupting while Irish, chewing gum on line, and thinking in Catholic.

In response to such misbehavior, Riptide — renowned region-wide for his extraordinary finger strength — would grab the offender by the ear and haul them on down to the police station, or, as location and weather accorded, to Ratholio: a large hole in the ground operated and guarded by the Pinkertons.

Riptide's wife, Mary McMingus (née Mudge), gives birth to twin sons. In their twenties, Quick Red and Buster John would go on to make their name in show business with the global phenomenon that was their "tap and snap" routine, Just Brothers — delighting nations the world over. In 1979, the pair would make history as the first pair of brothers ever elected to share the position of Sheriff of Yucker County, Texas.

Later in life, Riptide returns to the classroom, earning not one but two Master of Business Administration degrees — the first from the Gomer-Laibe Business College of Fresno, California, and the second from the Gomer-Laibe Business Finishing College of Lima, Ohio. The dual credential, unusual even by today's standards, reflected his conviction that a business education, however expertly delivered in Fresno, could only be properly finished in Lima.

Riptide attends a screening of Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were, having erroneously believed that the Vocation Cinema would be playing the Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force, that evening. He repeatedly urges the projectionist to "shut this crap off" before threatening to kick and spit on him in the parking lot after the film. Tragically, Riptide chokes on his popcorn before this can happen, leaving us too soon — at just seventy-four.