Between strength and graciousness

Leadership, Lori Blong has learned, rarely offers clean choices. More often, it requires holding tension—making decisions while remaining open to dialogue, standing firm while staying rooted in relationship.

For Blong, a 2003 graduate of Hardin-Simmons University, that posture did not begin in public office. It was shaped years earlier by an education grounded in understanding people, seasons of uncertainty that tested her assumptions about her calling, and a steady conviction that leadership, at its best, is both decisive and deeply human.

Long before she would help guide her hometown of Midland as its first female mayor, Blong was learning at HSU how people think—and why that matters.

Learning people before leading them

Blong landed on the “Forty Acres” of HSU on a ministry scholarship, with a clear sense of direction.

“I came fully intending to go into ministry,” she said. “I was interested in developmental psychology, family ministry, education ministry—those traditional pathways.”

Like many undergraduates, Blong arrived with a plan that shifted once she encountered the classes that captivated her. Psychology courses, particularly those taught by Tom Copeland, reshaped the direction she thought she was headed.

“I loved it,” she said. “Dr. Copeland was one of my favorite professors, and I ended up taking every class he taught.”

She said studying psychology, combined with education, gave her tools she still relies on.

“That background helped me perceive what makes people tick,” Blong said. “I use things I learned in those classes all the time, whether that’s in business, public service, or leadership.”

When the plan changed

As a senior, Blong believed she had found her direction and calling. She had enrolled in seminary and planned to continue the path that had first drawn her to Hardin-Simmons. During her final year on campus, she met the man who would later become her husband.

“By the time I was supposed to move to Fort Worth and start seminary, I realized I wanted to marry this man who lived in El Paso,” she said. “So, I changed my whole career path.”

After graduating in 2003, Blong married and followed her husband to El Paso. What followed, she said, was a season marked by uncertainty rather than clarity.

She began teaching high school social studies and psychology, a role she said she loved—particularly the relationships with students—even as her personal and professional life began to diverge from the path she had imagined.

“I really struggled for several years,” Blong said. “I believed the Lord had called me to ministry, and I wrestled with whether I had walked away from what he wanted for my life.”

That tension followed her through early motherhood, relocation, and seasons of uncertainty. In 2013, multiple pressures converged at once.

“My dad passed away. We lost three grandparents. We had just started our company. I had our third baby and experienced severe postpartum depression,” she said. “It was a lot, all at once.”

Calling reframed

Blong said the turning point came several years later at an IF: Lead conference, where she heard Jill Briscoe speak.

“Jill said that your primary place of calling is right where you are—between your own two feet,” Blong recalled. “Not a future version of yourself. Not the vision you had when you were 18.”

Blong said the words reframed how she understood obedience.

“She also said that the courage to do the hard thing usually comes after you say ‘yes,’” she said.

In the months that followed, Blong said her perspective began to shift.

“That conference and what Jill said allowed me to see that I had been acting as though everything was mine to control and manage,” Blong said. “And that I was resentful when things didn’t turn out the way that I wanted.”

Blong said she eventually came to understand she had not abandoned her calling, but that it had taken a different form than she expected.

That understanding led her to serve where she was in the moment—within schools, churches, community organizations, and the company, Octane Energy, she co-founded with her husband, Jared. She said her background in psychology and education shaped how she approached leadership in the business, and that her husband has been a steady, supportive partner throughout her career and calling.

“Working with people, building trust, motivating teams—that’s people work,” Blong said.

Choosing to be part of the solution

Over time, Blong said her sense of responsibility toward her community sharpened, often shaped by conversations she shared with her husband about what it meant to belong to a place.

“We decided that if we were going to live here, we didn’t want to complain about our community,” she said. “We wanted to be part of the solution.”

Blong was elected to the Midland City Council in November 2019 and sworn in January 2020. Two months later, COVID-19 reshaped public life.

“The learning curve was fast,” she said. “You realize quickly that when you step into public service, people respond very personally to decisions.”

Some criticism came from people who had known her for years.

“I remember sitting with it and feeling really sad,” Blong said. “Because people who knew me well believed things about me that weren’t true. And I had to learn how to make the decision I believed was right and still be willing to listen and stay in relationship with people who didn’t agree.”

Blong said navigating that tension became one of the most formative lessons of leadership.

“You have to have a strong personality to be able to lead forward,” she said. “But if you’re going to do that successfully long term, you have to be able to listen to people and work well with others.”

What she hopes remains

When asked what she hopes people will remember about her leadership, Blong did not begin with policies or titles.

“I hope people would say that I led with graciousness,” she said. “That I was willing to come to the table and work with people who had very different viewpoints.”

It’s the work she did not expect.

And the calling she has learned to live out, right where she stands.

This story first appeared in Hardin-Simmons University’s Spring 2026 Range Rider magazine and is republished by permission.