His name is T.Boone. He is a “good old boy” from Texas who made billions in oil. He owns several drilling companies and invests in oil patch companies. His full name is T.Boone Pickens.
T.Boone is a big contributor to his alma mater, Oklahoma State University. He has dropped hundreds of millions into the athletic programs at OSU. The University doesn’t make big decisions with out calling T.Boone first.
T.Boone and a university fund raising group called Cowboy Athletics (the OSU mascot is a Cowboy) hatched a plan to raise $33 million dollars through contributions. The money would be used to buy life insurance on 27 distinquished supporters of the OSU athletic program. Each life insurance policy would be worth $10 million. If all 27 supporters died at one time, the University as the beneficiary would receive $270 million. Clever.
My old boss always said “the plans are mans, the odds are Gods”. Guess what? The Cowboy Athletic group ran out of money paying the premiums on life insurance of the alumni. The whole $33 million was gone. The policies had to be dropped. The big problem was that nobody died. All 27 people that had life insurance policies were still living. If just one had died, $10 million more would have been available to keep insurance going.
T.Boone and friends sued the insurance company for deceptive practices claiming they had been defrauded. Alas, they lost!
So God gets the last laugh. There are obviously lots of old alumni at Oklahoma State and they don’t intend to die soon. The insurance company is $33 million richer.
Don’t count T.Boone out. He is smart. He is clever. He will devise a new program. OSU athletics will continue to prosper.
Love,
Dad