The foundation also focused on friends in his Dallas, Texas home, the education and athletics, especially 91-year-old billionaire philanthropist, for Oklahoma State University. In entrepreneur, and shareholder rights 2007, Pickens launched the Pickens champion from small-town Oklahoma, Plan, spending $100 million out of his whose audacious forays against some own pocket in support of U.S. energy of America’s biggest oil companies independence. He began a project forever changed the national to build what would have become corporate playbook, died of natural the world’s largest wind farm in the causes on September 11, 2019. Texas Panhandle. Unfortunately, his Pickens was one of the most wind energy efforts in the region were generous university benefactors crippled due to the slow pace in the of all time, contributing more than development by Texas of the needed $652 million to his alma mater, infrastructure to export the wind energy including one of his 昀椀nal gifts of $25 outside of the region. Pickens lost in million to make possible the Human excess of $140 million, leading him to Performance and Nutrition Research abandon the project. He then shifted Institute. In OSU’s $1 billion Branding his focus to Congress in an attempt to Success fundraising campaign, secure incentives for converting diesel he challenged other alums to be trucks to compressed natural gas. generous by agreeing to match Nevertheless, Pickens’ efforts served T. Boone Pickens routinely spoke to Oklahoma donations up to $100 million. Pickens as the catalyst for the renewable energy State University graduates. Photograph by Jim 昀椀rmly believed one of the reasons he was landscape that has transformed nationally Argo, May 4, 1984. Courtesy Oklahoma put on this earth was to make money and that energy sector. Historical Society. be generous with it. The Holdenville house Having maintained an active lifestyle for he grew up in now sits at Oklahoma most of his life, Pickens had an incredible State University’s Karsten Creek. He amount of energy that carried him well never forgot where he came from and in into his 80s. However, after suffering a a poetic ending to his monumental life, series of strokes and a “Texas-sized fall” his eternal resting place is just outside his in 2017, it became clear to Pickens that childhood bedroom window, a place he was approaching the end of the fourth where he once imagined big ideas and quarter of his life. Surrounded by family and dreamed of a world not yet built. In the fall of 2024, the Boone Pickens Legacy Experience will open in the West End Zone of Boone Pickens Stadium on the campus at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. The museum will chronicle not only Pickens’ upbringing, but his enormous impact as a result of his keen business acumen and generous philanthropy. The Experience also will explore Oklahoma’s rich history, providing for a well-rounded, immersive “experience.” 34