The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see "About TBPF"). The current partner spotlight is the Fort Worth-based Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation, whose mission is to support, encourage, and motivate students to become better scholars, citizens, and athletes, and to serve as leaders and role models for their peers.

Formed by former baseball player, manager, and executive Bobby Bragan, the Foundation has been awarding scholarships to deserving youth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since 1992, and to date has promised almost $1.37 million in scholarships to a total of 547 students. More than 96 percent of BBYF scholarship winners have gone on to college. Every year, more than 36,000 eighth-grade students are offered the opportunity to compete for these $2,500 scholarships, which are redeemed once the recipient has graduated from high school and enrolled in college.

Thirty-seven outstanding eighth-grade students received the promise of a BBYF scholarship in April 2011. These scholarship recipients attend middle and junior high schools in 16 school districts across the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"This is a great program, one I'm proud to be associated with," Pickens says. "Young minds are a precious commodity. Bobby Bragan lived his life with an abiding love of the game of baseball, and upon his retirement from the game transferred some of that love to supporting the youth in his back yard."

The Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation honored Pickens with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and in 2011 named one of its scholarships in his honor. The fund from which Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation scholarships are annually paid has been established over the years by contributions from corporations, foundations, individuals, and Bragan's family and friends. Each of these contributions has been made in the form of a named "perpetual scholarship," which is annually awarded to a specially selected scholarship winner in perpetuity. The inaugural T. Boone Pickens scholarship was awarded to Brooke England from E. D. Walker Middle School in Dallas at the foundation's annual Scholarship Celebration held April 3.

"We are proud to have the opportunity to award an annual scholarship in Mr. Pickens' name," said John Esch, past BBYF president and current development chair. "A central part of the scholarship competition is for each participant to identify a role model and write an essay on the positive impact of that role model. Mr. Pickens is just that: a positive role model."

The Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award Gala honors some of the greatest names in sports and philanthropy, and recognizes its scholarship recipients who will graduate from high school the following spring. Bragan, who died in January 2010, was involved with baseball in some form or fashion for nine decades. His first exposure to the sport was as a player, then as a manager and later as an executive and finally as Fort Worth's ambassador to the game. Bragan was CEO and chairman of the Foundation until his death.

For more information on the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation, visit www.bobbybragan.org.