Legendary Texas oil wildcatter and philanthropist, William “Tex” Moncrief Jr., died Wednesday at the age of 101, according to numerous press reports.
Coming from a family that had Oklahoma ties, Moncrief was a pioneer in the Fort Worth oil and gas industry. His father, Monty, was born and raised in Checotah, Oklahoma and worked as an oil industry executive for Marland Oil Company in Fort Worth after returning from World War I until he became an independent producer in 1929. Tex joined the family business when he was just 10 years old when his father discovered a six-billion-barrel East Texas oilfield. Continuing his father’s legacy, Moncrief Offshore LLC struck an offshore field in 2010 that held up to six trillion cubic feet of gas, according to a profile in Forbes.
Aside from his work in oil, Moncrief was known around Fort Worth and Texas for his generosity and donations to his community. Moncrief donated $100 million toward the UT Southwestern Medical Center, first at the Moncrief Cancer Institute and later for the Monty and Tex Moncrief Medical Center that opened in 2017.
“He was incredibly generous, not only in Fort Worth, but around the world,” said Texas State Rep. Charlie Geren when interviewed by Fort-Worth’s Star-Telegram. “The Moncrief name is all over Fort Worth. You can look at the UT Southwestern Moncrief Cancer Center, buildings at the Stock Show; he was just a very, very generous man. Fort Worth will miss him.”
The 101-year-old was the president of the William A. and Elizabeth B. Moncrief Foundation, a non-profit which helped educational, health, civic and cultural organizations at universities and schools around Texas. In 2001, he was inducted into the Texas Philanthropy Hall of Fame.
Tex Moncrief also served during World War II and “received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was trained at Harvard as a communications officer,” according to a University of Texas Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering distinguished alumni biography. His death comes nearly a year after the passing of his son, C.B. “Charlie” Moncrief, who died in January at the age of 71.