Here's the wrong way:

And here's the right way:

Interestingly enough, the right way is how wxGlade displays the editable interface mockup, however the text isn't centered like it should be. The wrong way is how wxGlade's preview and the compiled version look, text is centered correctly, size is not correct.
To get the narrow width, I explicitly set the size to 30, 21 I have found no other way to get the size smaller in any view. I've tried playing with sizers and spacers, and haven't found anything that does anything to change the minimum size of the TextCtrl.
Heeeeelp!
Thanks,
Leeman