When does legendary wildcatter T. Boone Pickens rest? Never. Or so it seems. Each morning, after his 
six a.m. workout, the 83-year-old heads to BP Capital, the 
Dallas-based hedge fund he formed in 1997. “I love to work,” says Pickens, who keeps busy with television appearances and lectures to promote the Pickens Plan, his energy policy 
proposal. Even visits to Mesa Vista, his 68,000-acre ranch near Pampa, are wrapped up 
in business affairs. “I’ve got a dinner for thirty-eight people there tonight,” he says. Though he’s filled his work space with pictures and maps of his beloved retreat—his wife, Madeleine, had his childhood home moved there from Holdenville, Oklahoma—he keeps his most cherished mementos from 
family and friends in a cabinet just a few feet from his desk. 

About the Items on T. Boone Pickens’s Office Cabinet

• You see what it’s named? Boone. It was given to me in 1984, when we tried to take over Gulf Oil.

• I don’t read as much as I used to because I don’t see well anymore. But my daughter Lizzie has always given me some really nice books.

• This is the new stadium at Oklahoma State University. It’s easy to have a stadium named after you. You just give some money.

• That’s a little something from Oklahoma State.

• That’s me and Madeleine at my eightieth birthday, ten years ago. Not really. I just turned 83.

• That’s a picture of me and Ron Bassett. I’m saying, “What do you think, Ron?” 
He’s a financial guy who’s worked for 
me for more than forty years.

• Those are my two boys and two girls, Tom, Mike, Pam, and Deborah. And this is my fifth child, Lizzie.

• I’m on the Reagan Library board. I was a big supporter of Ronald Reagan.

• Princess was the first great bird dog I had. She was highly intelligent and really quick.

• This usually stays on my desk. I do 25 of them when I’m on the phone or something.

•••••

Read more about T. Boone Pickens and see personal family photos at boonepickens.com.

Visit pickensplan.com for details about the plan and Pickens’s personal video blog.

For schedules, video, and more information about the OSU Cowboys go to okstate.com.

Reaganfoundation.org has event listings, a video tour of the library, and ways to donate online.

See pictures of Pickens’s Mesa Vista Ranch in Pampa at mesavistaranch.com.