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Oklahoma State Holds Celebration of Life in Memoriam of T. Boone Pickens

Gundy, Gov. Stitt, and others spoke at his celebration of life.

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STILLWATER — If there was any question as to what tone Boone Pickens’ Celebration of Life was going to take, it was answered quickly.

On the opening video of Picken’s Stillwater tribute started with a scene from 2014. In the video, set in the middle of Boone Pickens Stadiums on a chilly November night, Pickens proclaimed, “My a– is cold.”

Gallagher-Iba Arena hosted Pickens’ Celebration of Life on Wednesday. It was dimly lit with a stage on the west side of Eddie Sutton Court. A few thousand people were in attendance. The arena’s video boards were black with Pickens’ orange signature written across them.

Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, OSU president Burns Hargis, benefactor Anne Greenwood, football coach Mike Gundy and athletic director Mike Holder all spoke and shared wonderful stories from interactions with Pickens over the years.

Larry Reece hosted. After a prayer, Reece shared how Pickens helped him Reece get into MD Anderson’s Cancer Center to fight Reece’s throat cancer. Reece is now four years cancer free.

Hargis then came up and introduced Stitt, but before the introduction, Hargis poked some fun at Texas A&M. Pickens originally went to A&M on a $25 a month basketball scholarship before getting cut and leaving College Station for Oklahoma State.

“We’re blessed that Texas A&M cut his scholarship,” Hargis said. “Let’s have a moment of silence for Texas A&M.”

Holder met Pickens through mutual friend Jerry Harris. In an attempt to raise some money for the golf program he just took over, Holder organized a pro-am, and Holder asked if Harris would play and be a sponsor. Harris said he would and that he’d bring a few friends along: Sherman Smith and Boone Pickens.

Holder said his interaction with Pickens was minimal that day, but afterward since Pickens came and invested in his program, Holder decided he would invest in Pickens’ life. Pickens came to the pro-am 46 years in a row. Holder and Boone went on to hunt quail together, something Holder said Boone was the greatest of all time at.

“That’s where we got to spending a lot of time together and did a lot of dreaming together and talking about it when he didn’t have any money to make a difference, and I darn sure didn’t,” Holder told the media before the ceremony. “But we had some really, really big ideas of what we would do if we ever had any money.”

Greenwood told the story of her first major interaction with Pickens. Her and her husband, Michael, had recently retired back to Stillwater, where they went to college. The two were invited to Pickens 80th birthday party.

“I’m paraphrasing because this is a few years back and my memory’s not the world’s greatest either, but he said pretty much this simple statement: ‘I don’t know why people wait until they die to give away their money because they can’t see what it does,'” Greenwood recalled.

Anne said that struck a cord with her and her husband, and the Greenwoods were inspired to donate themselves. They donated the money for the Michael and Anne Greenwood Tennis Center and as Pickens name dons the university’s geology school, the Greenwoods’ is on the school of music.

Before the event, Hargis told his point of view from Pickens’ record-breaking $165 million donation at the end of 2005. Hargis wasn’t the president at the time but went as a chairman. There was a Katrina exemption in 2005, where people could write there entire charitable gifts off, so it was important to get the deal done in 2005.

“Well who’s ever been around $165 million?” Hargis said. “We’d gone through an elaborate presentation. Most people don’t know Holder’s got a master’s, an MBA. He can do spreadsheets and PowerPoints and all that stuff, which I can’t. He had it all allocated, all figured out.”

Hargis said Pickens told Ron Bassett, “Pickens’ right-hand money person,” that they needed to hurry to get the money to OSU in with enough time. Hargis said he was alone with Pickens in the room with Bassett gone to try to figure out a way to wire the money.

Pickens told Hargis he knew he was going to donate the money, but he couldn’t sleep the night before because he didn’t know if it was possible to liquidate that amount of money that quickly.

“It wasn’t 30 minutes that Ron Bassett came in and said, ‘OK, I figured it out.’ He said, ‘Oh, what are you gonna do?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve already done it. I sent it.’

“I’ll never forget, Boone said, ‘It’s all gone?'”

Hargis had a lot of awesome stories about his interactions with Pickens. Pickens apparently hounded Hargis for years to tear down Cordell Hall outside of the west end zone of BPS, but Hargis couldn’t until he had space to put the people who worked there.

Pickens also sent every kid who grew up on his ranch to college on his dime. Hargis got a call one day that Pickens wanted to talk to him.

“Boone never called you direct,” Hargis said. “Sally called. Sally says, ‘Mr. Pickens wants to talk to you.’

“She puts him on and he said … ‘Sally says I’m paying out-of-state tuition for these kids.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, they’re out of state, Boone.’ And he said, I won’t say what he said. … ‘How much money do I have to give that place to pay in-state tuition.'”

Gundy spoke about an hour into the ceremony. He told stories on walking around looking at old facilities with Boone when Gundy was only an assistant before he knew fully what was going to happen.

He told the story of how proud Pickens was in the first game in the stadium after the rededication in 2009. It was a game against a scary No. 13 Georgia team that boasted A.J. Green. Gundy said it was “a game I didn’t want to play. Coach Holder made me play it. I wanted to play a different school.”

On the day of Pickens’ passing, Gundy said his son Gage texted him when Gage should’ve been paying attention at school and asked if Pickens really did die.

Gundy told him it was true, and Gage texted back “Well who’s gonna be the boss now?”

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