Oklahoma State alumnus and mega-booster Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. died Wednesday at his home in Dallas. He was 91 years old.
Pickens was born May 22, 1928, and grew up in Holdenville, Oklahoma. His family moved to Amarillo, Texas, and he attended Texas A&M University on a basketball scholarship before transferring to Oklahoma A&M, which is now called Oklahoma State. He graduated in 1951 with a degree in geology and started to work at Phillips Petroleum.
In 1964, he founded Mesa Petroleum and within three decades the company had become one of the largest independent oil companies in the world.