Gundy, Fowler Among Speakers at Boone Pickens’ Celebration of Life in GIA

Mike Gundy, Rickie Fowler, Burns Hargis, Mike Holder, Anne Greenwood and Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt are all scheduled to speak at the Celebration of Life for Boone Pickens next week.

The event that is open to the public will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Gallagher-Iba Arena. It will feature performances from the Oklahoma State marching band and a cappella group Pokeapella. The event will also be streamed live on OSU’s Facebook page.

Pickens died last week at 91. He donated $652 million over the course of his life to Oklahoma State. The star-studded cast of speakers shows just how wide Pickens’ generosity reached. It isn’t every day a Division I football coach, a golf pro, a university president, an athletic director, a major benefactor and a state governor all get under one roof to celebrate one man.

“It’s sad,” Gundy said after the Tulsa game. “Mr. Pickens and I went head-to-head a lot. He won most all of them. But I had a lot of respect for him, and I think he respected me. Between Mr. Pickens and President (Burns) Hargis, Coach (Mike) Holder, and myself, we won a hell of a lot of football games and been successful. He’s been his own boss for 70 years, and I’ve been mine for 15. So sometimes you have confrontation, but I have a ton of respect.

“It’s kinda sad, ya know. It’s sad knowing that he’s not there. It really is, and it feels weird. We’ll have a couple nice tributes to him, and them I’m sure we’ll have some stuff at Karsten Creek and on campus for him to remember his legacy forever.”

Pickens funeral service was in Texas on Thursday, and he will be buried at Karsten Creek, where his childhood home was moved.