An accomplished environmental steward,  Pickens' 68,000-acre Mesa Vista Ranch is a model for wildlife resource management. His business ventures include an alternative energy provider, the largest supplier of vehicular natural gas in North America, and plans for the world’s largest wind farm. Pickens also has stepped to the forefront of national water resource development issues with a proposal to market surplus and stranded groundwater in the Texas Panhandle to urban areas in the state facing severe water supply shortages.

Prior to Pickens’ first Roberts County land purchase in 1971, the county’s rolling hills, bluffs and creek beds suffered from consistent overgrazing. The legendary entrepreneur immediately began a multi-step program to help the land recover, over time investing about $25 million in overall wildlife management strategies and facilities, installing substantial water sources, food plots and native grass replanting, and power infrastructure. Those initiatives, along with efforts to market stranded and surplus water in the region elsewhere in the state, have led to a tremendous increase in local land values.

In the process, Pickens has increased the size and breadth of Mesa Vista. Today, Dallas Morning News outdoors writer Ray Sasser calls Mesa Vista “the Wild West equivalent of a southern gentleman’s hunting plantation, arguably the finest quail-hunting spot in the known universe.”

“Quail hunting is a life-long passion tracking back to my father, who always kept two bird dogs in a pen out back of our home in Holdenville, Oklahoma,” the 2006 Horatio Alger award winner explains. “That was big, open, country — pretty good quail territory. I shot my first quail when I was about 13 years old.

            “Today, I am driven by a desire to conserve and reclaim over-grazed land for quail habitat, and to develop long-term wildlife management plans that can be used to improve land values through an expansion of recreational opportunities.”

2006  -Walter Kellogg  

Walter was known by many in the region as the consummate gentleman sportsman.   A lover of bird dogs and the traditions of the sport, Walter introduced many youth to their first hunt.  He helped dog breeders get their start and was generous with his time and resources.  An enthusiastic supporter of Quail Unlimited and many other worthwhile causes that improved the sporting environment, Walter encouraged the formation of Park Cities Quail Unlimited.  Unfortunately Walter passed to the "prairie eternal" just few weeks before the ceremony but he left a legacy of the sporting life to his family and many others throughout the country.







To submit a nomination for the Lifetime Sportsman Award, please send a detailed email to: award@pcqu.org.