Neeli Bendapudi, dean of the Kansas University School of Business, center, is pictured with recipients of the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award. At left is David Murfin, president of Murfin Drilling Co., and at right is David Booth, founder and chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors.

The Kansas University School of Business is honoring two of its graduates who have gone on to successful business careers with the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award.

David Booth, an Austin, Texas, resident who founded Dimensional Fund Advisors in 1981, and David Murfin, president of the Wichita-based Murfin Drilling Co., received the recognition on Thursday.

Booth, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1968 and a master’s in business in 1969 from KU, purchased James Naismith’s original 13 rules of basketball in 2010 for $4.3 million and later donated the rules to KU.

In an interview on Thursday, Booth said the rules, which are on display in Austin, are likely headed for an expanded Booth Family Hall of Athletics on a second floor of Allen Fieldhouse.

He said he outbid a friend (who cost him some money, he added), who would have sent the rules to Duke.

“I think people here are happier that they’re coming here rather than Duke,” Booth said.

He said he didn’t have a “magic bullet” for courses students should take to be successful in business.

“Most business school students have successful careers, but most people who have successful careers aren’t business school students,” Booth said.

Being imaginative is important, he said. His fund became known for applying new ideas, he said, but many were already in the public domain.

Today, when he gets a break from running Dimensional Fund Advisors, Booth is working on the Bella Oaks Vineyard he purchased 18 months ago in Rutherford, Calif., in Napa Valley.

Murfin leads the Murfin Drilling Co., which was founded in 1926 by his grandfather. Today, he also heads up other business ventures, such as John Deere Industrial Equipment dealers (the “yellow stuff,” like the big construction equipment, and not the green stuff, Murfin said).

Murfin recalled his time at KU fondly, when he was active in student government during a tumultuous time at the university, arriving in 1970, just after the burning of the Kansas Union.

“It was a real interesting time,” Murfin said. “You had all sorts of ideas represented back then.”

His father didn’t want him to get into the oil business — some experts then predicted the world’s oil supply would be exhausted in 20 years, Murfin said. In 1970, the price of oil was $2.35 per barrel. Today, it’s over $100 per barrel.

After graduating, Amoco made him the best offer, so Murfin went to work there and later joined his expanding family company.

He said efforts like carbon sequestration so far haven’t provided a workable cost-benefit analysis. If some enhanced oil recovery projects work out, it could be a different situation, he said.

“What oil has done for the last hundreds of years is provided a tremendous standard of living for people in our country,” he said. “And why people would want to turn their back on that I don’t understand.”

The business school has recognized 46 alumni with the award. Past recipients include entrepreneur Philip Anschutz, former Goldman Sachs executive Robert Kaplan and Cerner Corp. co-founder Clifford Illig.