Stanley Marsh 3: A Texas Revolutionary
An artist, philanthropist, and all-around silly human being is how Stanley Marsh 3 describes himself when approached by someone who doesn’t know his infamous reputation. He is definitely a man who cannot be accurately described without telling his story. A billionaire, a liberal civil rights activist, and a prankster, Stanley Marsh 3 is one of a kind in his sleepy Panhandle town.
Stanley Marsh 3 is the third person in his family named Stanley, but he uses the Arabic numeral 3 in place of the more traditional Roman numeral III after his name (he considers III to be pretentious). Stanley 3’s grandfather, Stanley Marsh, was a legendary Texas oilman along with other tycoons of the day, Don Harrington and Lawrence R. Hagy. They started a business that developed oil and gas properties in the Texas Panhandle, and it was very successful indeed. Today noone knows exactly what the net worth of Stanley Marsh 3 is, but it is considered to be substantial.
Stanley Marsh 3 and his wife, Wendy Marsh, reside in an estate on the outskirts of Amarillo, called “Toad Hall” . They have five adopted children. As Stanley 3 is a very proud recovering alcoholic, The Marsh family founded The Wendy and Stanley Marsh 3 Endowed Lectureship in Pharmacology and Neurochemistry of Substance Abuse/Addiction at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The family also donated land to the private school, Ascension Academy.
Art and Insanity
In the 1970s, Stanley Marsh 3, together with the art group, Ant Farm, created the now world-famous Cadillac Ranch. Other public art projects, include a group he founded known as “Dynamite Museum”. Dynamite Museum consists of a group of young men who paint hundreds of mock traffic signs bearing both beautiful art, and cryptic or funny messages. When in Amarillo, you will no doubt see dozens of the signs, as they are posted in yards (with homeowners permission) on at least every other block in town. You might see signs depicting a Spanish Dancer, or a message that says, “Road does not end”, “Lubbock is a greasy spoon”, “It crept into my hand, honest”, “The roaches in my kitchen tremble”, or simply, “Home sweet home”, and “Someday my prince will come”. The signs are fascinating for the most part, and make for a little excitement in a town that is as flat as a pancake, and windier than Chicago.
Stanley Marsh 3 has moved onto other endeavors as well, including a giant phantom pool table that can only be seen from the air, and huge sculpted legs in the middle of a field. The legs are a sculpted tribute to one of Marsh’s favorite poems called “Ozymanias”, by Byron Shelley. Figments of Stanley Marsh 3’s grand imagination embodied in projects all over the Panhandle are too numerous to count.
As for the personality of the man who comes up with these endlessly kooky and entertaining endeavors, well, here’s an example. In 1999, Marsh disrupted a live television broadcast from Amarillo by the cable television network, The Weather Channel, when he performed a Native American snow dance in front of the cameras.
Rumors abound, and that’s the way Stanley Marsh 3 likes it. The only way to know if there’s truth to any rumor is to look for photos and documentation, of which there is plenty. He showed up at John Connally’s bribery trial in Washington, D.C., wearing Western dude clothes and carrying a bucket of cow manure, and hired an Italian dwarf to accompany him to a large society wedding dressed in an Aunt Jemima outfit.
Business Goes with Pleasure
Don’t make the mistake of underestimating this playful self-described Teddy Bear. Behind Stanley Marsh 3’s pursuits lie lots of money, and lots of power. Marsh 3 has in the past owned local ABC and NBC affiliates through the Marsh Media Company, and numerous other lucrative holdings that fall under Marsh Enterprizes, with offices located in downtown Amarillo’s tallest building, Chase Tower. Stanley Marsh 3 regularly enjoys dropping full water balloons on the heads of unfortunate passersby from his top floor office.
Stanley Marsh 3’s life has not all been fun and games, however, and not all of his projects have been good-natured. He has had a notorious feud for the last forty years with the other most powerful oil family in the Panhandle, the Whittenburgs. In the ’90’s, this feud resulted in a lawsuit and an arrest for Mr. Marsh. He allegedly falsely imprisoned a young Whittenburg in a chickencoop on his land. Other lawsuits faced over the years by Stanley Marsh 3 alleged sexual misconduct and harassment. All charges were dropped and civil suits settled, eventually.
When one wonders why all the stunts, quirks, and seemingly pointless ventures bring him so much joy, perhaps Stanley Marsh 3 sums it up best in his own words.
His goal, he once said, was “to encourage art for art’s sake and use it to fight back the ever-rising flood of philistinism.”
