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An exclusive look at OSU's new eye candy – the Boone Pickens Legacy Experience

• Aug 8, 2024 Updated 8 hrs ago
  
  

  Bill Haisten​

  Tulsa World Sports Columnist & Writer
  
  

  Daniel Shular​

  Tulsa World Staff Photographer
  
  
  STILLWATER — During a Thursday tour, and while staying out of the way of workers who painted walls and delivered pieces of new furniture, the Tulsa World was given the first look at the bones of the Boone Pickens Legacy Experience — a museum positioned in the west end of Boone Pickens Stadium.
  The privately funded museum is only a few steps removed from the Boone Pickens statue and, fittingly, from the Oklahoma State football offices.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  While his money and influence touched all facets of the university, Pickens had a pronounced impact on the development of the Cowboy football program since 2003.
  The Tulsa World’s tour guides were Andy Anway, who will retire from an impressive career as a museum designer after this project is completed; Mike Holder, OSU’s athletic director in 2005-21; and Jay Rosser, a longtime Pickens associate who now is the director of the T. Boone Pickens Foundation.
  
  
  Within the Pickens museum is a replica of the tiny Holdenville house in which he spent his childhood. There is a 1955-model station wagon like the one Pickens drove and worked out of as a young wildcatter for Phillips Petroleum.
  
  
  
  
  There are countless images and memorabilia pieces chronicling his life in the oil-and-gas industry, his philanthropy, his relationships with figures like President Ronald Reagan and his love for Oklahoma State.
  Anway is the founder of Boston-based Amaze Design LLC. Alluding to the flurry of activity on Thursday, he explained that he and his staff have shifted to “hustle mode” on their Pickens job. This is Anway’s final project before he slides into retirement.
  
  A Boone Pickens Legacy Experience VIP sneak-peek event is scheduled for Sept. 10 — one day before the fifth anniversary of Pickens’ 2019 death at the age of 91.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  While the museum will be accessible to the public, Rosser said, an official opening day has not been scheduled. The museum probably won’t be open on home-game football days because the traffic would be overwhelming.
  “We can’t wait for the Oklahoma State people to see this,” Rosser said. “I haven’t been here for a month, and I’m blown away by all the of changes I’m seeing today.”
  Anway’s body of work includes Smithsonian displays, the master planning of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the design of the H. Ross Perot legacy library in Dallas.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Our goal was more to inspire people,” Anway said of his company’s ideas for the Pickens gallery. “For someone from a small town in Oklahoma to achieve what (Pickens) did — those are the takeaways.
  “If you’re fortunate enough to be wealthy, what do you do with that wealth? How do you manage yourself? Those are the lessons to be learned here.”
  
  At the museum entry, a Pickens-narrated video is presented on a large monitor. “Before I go out,” Pickens says during the nine-minute video, “(and) before it’s over with for me, I’ll be sure I’ve done everything to make OSU academically, athletically and in every other way as good as the next school.”
  
  Before the tour began, Rosser gestured toward Holder and said, “I’m so grateful that he is here today. None of this would have happened without him and his friendship with Boone.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  If not for that 1973 introduction, Holder said on Thursday, “Boone — he probably would have stayed disenfranchised from OSU. Maybe for perpetuity. I don’t know.”
  
  “Losing football is not attractive,” Holder continued. “Boone didn’t like losers. Coming back for a (Cowboy) football game — that was not (a priority). After one of our homecoming games, he said, ‘I get tired of leaving here and looking down at my shoes.’ ”
  
  Holder recalled a 1980s football game attended by Pickens, who sat with other prominent alumni in a primitive suite of sorts in the Lewis Field press box. Served at halftime: a ho-hum snack of cookies and punch.
  At one point that afternoon, and after having taken inventory of Lewis Field and its lack of amenities, Pickens stood and addressed everyone in the room: “Hey! Is this the best we can do? Are we going to continue to tolerate this? Look — I’ll give the first $100,000. Who else in here will give $100,000? Let’s do something about this.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The response was silence, and Pickens’ response to the silence was to disconnect from Oklahoma State football until the Les Miles-coached Cowboys scored Bedlam upset victories in 2001 and 2002.
  
  
  In 2003, Pickens donated $20 million for the start of a stadium renovation, and the facility immediately was given a new name: Boone Pickens Stadium.
  After Holder became the athletic director, Pickens stepped up with his most famous gift — a $165 million donation that resulted in a far more comprehensive stadium rebuild than had been planned.
  When the renovation was completed in 2009, Pickens cut the ribbon before the Cowboys’ season-opening victory over Georgia.
  
  
  
  Until the Pickens project work began, this museum space had been used as a store for the sales of OSU apparel.
  “We always had this space,” Holder said, “so it just made sense to put the Boone Pickens (museum) in here. I mean, my gosh — his name is (branded) above us on the stadium.”
  The Boone Pickens Legacy Experience is taking shape as a dazzling tribute to an OSU billionaire hero whose final donation was made in June 2023. When it was announced that the university had received $120 million from the Pickens estate, the overall total on his giving to OSU had reached the $651 million mark. The Pickens audio used throughout the museum is taken from interviews recorded in 2017-19. The ground-level, entry-way video includes this comment on his generosity: “I’ve had the money to give,” Pickens said, “and I’ve enjoyed giving it.”