T. Boone Pickens Foundation

MAY 03, 2011

STILLWATER, Oklahoma - The Cherokee Nation Foundation has become the first Native American Nation to endow a scholarship at Oklahoma State University.

The foundation and OSU announced Tuesday, a gift of $333,334 to Oklahoma State University to endow Cherokee Nation Foundation scholarships as part of Branding Success: The Campaign for Oklahoma State University.

With a match from entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens, under the Pickens Legacy Scholarship Match, the gift will total $1 million.
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FEBRUARY 19, 2011

Students tried out their nursing skills on robotic patients Friday as Texas Woman's University held its grand opening for its new health science institute, named for Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens.
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SPOTLIGHT

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see "About TBPF"). The current partner spotlight is on the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park, scheduled to open in early 2013.

The Museum of Nature & Science is the result of a 2006 merger, unlike any in the nation, of three cultural institutions - the Dallas Museum of Natural History (est. 1936), The Science Place (est. 1946) and The Dallas Children's Museum (est. 1995). The merger made the need for additional space critical. In November, 2009, the Museum of Nature & Science - whose mission is to "inspire minds through nature and science" - broke ground on an $185-million-dollar, world-class, state-of-the-art museum at Victory Park in Downtown Dallas which will supplement the Museum's existing programming and operations at its Fair Park location.

life then and now hall The Pickens Foundation donated $10 million to the museum's fundraising campaign. The T. Boone Pickens' Life Then and Now exhibit hall will invite visitors of all ages to explore how life has changed through time with dazzling presentations of the Museum's Alamosauras and other dinosaurs, taxidermy specimens from the Museum's extensive collections, and a hands-on fossil lab.

The T. Boones Pickens Life: Then and Now Hall, totalling 11,566 square feet, will occupy the museum's top floor and is one of the museum's most anticipated spaces. Pickens has high hopes for the museum, hoping it can match and later surpass the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which he calls "very impressive."

"I'm doing this for the kids," he says, with hopes it inspires a new generation to "imagine solutions" to what he calls a crowded frontier of critical problems.

"I was never a Nobel candidate, but they all say they went to museums that tweaked their imaginations, and from there, they moved on to greater things. I think that goes for most all kids. A museum is a starting point for them, or its a confirmation of something they've thought about a little bit and now it's elevating them to something. Young people are the future of the country. Every time you can give them a better chance to get where they need to be, why not?"

"The museum's 11 exhibit halls will feature video; 3D computer animation; thrilling, life-like simulation; hands-on activities; interactive kiosks and dioramas; quizzes; tabletop landscapes; animated music videos; and high-resolution, computer-generated flyovers. The 180,00-square foot facility will allow the museum to host world-class traveling exhibitions, and greatly expand its educational programs for school children and the general public.

"The Museum of Nature & Science is thrilled to have Boone Pickens as a partner in our effort to focus on the importance of science education to both kids and adults," said Forrest Hoglund, chairman of the Museum's Capital Campaign Committee. "His generosity is incredible; his passion for the sciences is invaluable."

For more information on the MNS, please visit www.natureandscience.org or call 972.201.0555.