For TCU, one of those big ideas was helping establish the Department of Engineering, which started enrollment in 1992.

Gearhart, 92, died July 20, 2019, in Fort Worth, just weeks after the death of his wife of 72 years, Jo Anne.

“In the engineering world, starting a new academic program doesn’t happen very often,” said Stephen Weis, the department chair and professor whom Gearhart recruited for the new TCU program.

Gearhart was an adviser, donor and industry connection who was always urging on innovations. If the department was exploring 40 concepts, Weis said, “when I was back on No. 2, he was already on 38.”

Gearhart-Owen, named for founders Gearhart and Harrold Owen ’51, became Gearhart Industries before Halliburton acquired it. The company built its success on drilling tools, especially for digital measuring, said Weis and Dee Ann Stenberg, Gearhart’s daughter.

“His passion was discovering new tools and innovations,” Stenberg said. Even at home, Gearhart would “take a knife or fork and rubber band or anything on the dinner table,” angle them and “use these ordinary things to describe things he was thinking about.”

He was also a fun dad, said daughter Janice DeLuca ’85, recalling magic tricks, windsurfing and water skiing. And he was wise: “If you were trying to think something out, instead of giving you the answer, he’d ask questions.”

He was devoted to TCU football as Frog Club president and eagerly pitched in to help the program.

Although a TCU trustee from 1978 to 2006, Gearhart was a Kansas State University graduate. The businessman who advised TCU on how to finance its engineering building remained the down-to-earth Kansas farm boy. He still bought his jeans at Walmart and his eyeglasses at Costco, his daughters said.