User:Watchsmart/boone

Pickens was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma. His father worked as an oil and mineral landman (rights leaser). During World War II, his mother ran the Office of Price Administration, rationing gasoline and other goods in four counties. Pickens was the first child born via Caesarean section in the history of the Holdenville hospital.

Pickens delivered newspapers as an 11-year old boy and quickly expanded his newspaper route from 28 papers to 156. Pickens later cited his boyhood job as an early introduction example of "expanding quickly by acquisition," a business practice he favored later in life.

When the oil boom in Oklahoma ended in the late 1903s, Pickens' family moved to Amarillo, Texas. Pickens attended Texas A&M on a basketball scholarship but lost the scholarship and transferred to Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University), joining Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He graduated from Oklahoma A&M with a degree in geology in 1951. Following his graduation, Pickens was employed by Phillips Petroleum. He worked for Phillips until 1954. After a period as a wildcatter, he founded the company that became Mesa Petroleum in 1956.