Well known Casper businessman and philanthropist Mick McMurry died early Tuesday morning at home. He was 69.
McMurry got his degree at the University of Wyoming and served in the Vietnam War before returning home to Casper to start a construction business. But he made his mark in the energy industry--helping develop the Jonah field in Western Wyoming. In the early 2000s McMurry and his wife Susie started the McMurry foundation, which gave tens of millions of dollars to organizations around the state. Much of their attention went to the University of Wyoming, which received 22 million dollars from the McMurry foundation over the years.
“He cared so much for the marching band, the football players, the basketball players, the girls’ teams,” said Ben Blalock, president of the University of Wyoming Foundation. “He just wanted to give back to students an opportunity he felt he was afforded at the University of Wyoming.”
The McMurry foundation also founded the McMurry Training Center in Casper, which offers training for jobs in heavy industry. The McMurrys were instrumental in laying the foundations of job training in Wyoming, says Wyoming Workforce Services Director Joan Evans. “Not only his efforts at the [McMurry] training center, but also his work with the community college system and the University of Wyoming. He truly understood that the success of Wyoming's workforce was tied to skills.”
Governor Mead said in a statement that he tried to live by Mick McMurry’s maxim: "I’m just trying to make a better Wyoming."