• Former Texas Lt. Gov. William P. Hobby
  - Video Tribute
• William P. Hobby, Sr.
  
• Oveta Culp Hobby

Bill Hobby has devoted 40 years of his life to public service, to his country, his state, and his city – as naval officer, journalist, parliamentary expert, governmental policymaker, university regent, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, university professor and Chancellor of the University of Houston System.

Born in Houston in 1932, Bill Hobby graduated from Rice University in 1953. He then served four years in the United States Navy. During his Navy days, he married Diana Poteat Stallings of North Carolina. They have four children and ten grandchildren.

Subsequent to his military service, he joined the staff of The Houston Post, the flagship of his family’s communications business. He was President of The Houston Post for nearly 21 years when the family sold the paper in 1983. He then served as Chairman of the Board of H&C Communications until his retirement in 1996.

He was parliamentarian of the Texas Senate, under the guidance of Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, during the 56th Legislature (1959).

He headed an extensive review of the state’s welfare system before his election as Lieutenant Governor in 1972.

Link to William P. Hobby Texas State Archives Scrapbook Inventory

Link to William P. Hobby Rice Faculty Report & Scholarly Interests

Bill Hobby’s and his family’s era in Texas politics and public service brought tremendous progress in numerous areas – public education, mental health, water conservation, fiscal management, indigent health care, corrections, and public assistance programs, to name a few.

But none of his many achievements is more important than his determination that Texas must sustain its commitment to excellence in higher education, and his support for the resources that make that possible.

Personal

Born: January 19, 1932, Houston, Texas
Wife: Diana Poteat Stallings
Children: Laura (Mrs. John) Beckworth, Paul Hobby,
Andrew Hobby, Kate (Mrs. Steve) Gibson

Education

St. Albans School, Washington, D.C., 1949
Rice University, BA in American History, 1953

Military Service

U.S. Navy, 1953-1957, discharged with rank of Lieutenant (jg)

Business History

Chairman, H&C Communications (and successor companies), 1983-present
President, Executive Editor, The Houston Post, 1965-1983

Higher Education Service

Current:
Scholar-in-Residence, University of Houston System
Member, Formula Advisory Committee, Texas Higher Education Coordinating      Board
Radoslav Tsanoff Professor, Rice University, 1989-present
National Advisory Council, Institute for Social Research

Past:
Chancellor, University of Houston System, 1995-1997
Sid Richardson Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas,      1990-1997
Member, Board of Trustees, St. Edward’s University, 1990-1995
Member, Board of Governors, Rice University, 1989-1993
Member, Board of Regents, University of Houston, 1965-1969
Chairman, Texas Commission on a Representative Student Body, 1998.
Member, Commission on Colleges, Southern Association of Colleges and      Schools, 2000
Member, Board of Overseers of Harvard College Committee to Visit the John F.
     Kennedy School of Government, 1995-2000

Honorary Degrees

Doctor of Laws, University of Houston, 1997
Doctor of Laws, Austin College, 1989
Doctor of Humanities in Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, 1986
Doctor of Humane Letters, St. Edward’s University, 1986

Awards

President Emeritus, Texas Senate
Santa Rita Award, University of Texas System Board of Regents, 1985
Distinguished Alumnus, Rice University, 1985

Professional Associations

Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration, 1991-present
President, Philosophical Society of Texas, 1986
Member, American Newspaper Publishers Association, 1960-1983
Member, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1960-1972
President, Texas Daily Newspaper Association, 1971
Chair, National Conference of Lieutenant Governors, 1976-1977

Directorships

Southwest Airlines, 1990-present
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, 1998-present

William P. Hobby, Sr.

One of six children, Hobby moved in 1893 with his family from Livingston to Houston, where he entered Houston High School. In 1895, he began working for the Houston Post as a circulation clerk. Hobby became a business writer for the Post in August, 1901.

He began to take an active interest in politics, was a founder of the Young Man's Democratic Club of Houston, and in 1904 was secretary of the party's state executive committee. He became city editor, then managing editor of the Post, and participated in the covering of some of the most spectacular stories of the time. In 1907 he left the Post to become managing editor and part owner of the Beaumont Enterprise, which he soon acquired.

Hobby was elected lieutenant governor in 1914 and was re-elected in 1916. He was married in 1915 to Willie Cooper, daughter of former United States Representative Samuel Bronson Cooper. She died in 1929. When Governor James Edward Ferguson was removed from office in 1917, Hobby became the twenty-sixth governor of Texas and the youngest man, at age thirty-nine, to hold the office. Hobby served during an eventful period. During World War I he set up an effective military draft system for Texas, a state in which half the country's military camps and most of its airfields were located.

In 1918, Hobby defeated Ferguson by the largest majority ever received in a Democratic primary. Hobby's administration was the passage of measures for drought relief, runoff requirements in party primaries, and state aid for schools and highways. He appointed the first Highway Commission in 1917. Laws included measures for oil conservation, the establishment of the oil and gas division of the Railroad Commission, the creation of the Board of Control, and provisions for free school textbooks.

After completing his term, he returned to the Beaumont Enterprise and purchased the Beaumont Journal. He retained control of both papers for more than a decade. In 1924, he became president of the Houston Post-Dispatch. When J.E. Josey acquired the newspaper in 1931 from Ross Sterling, Hobby continued in the presidency and maintained executive control. In 1939 he acquired the paper, again called the Post.

In February, 1931, Hobby married Oveta Culp of Killeen and Houston, a former parliamentarian of the Texas House, who became a Post staff member, served in World War II as commander of the Women's Army Corps, and served in Dwight David Eisenhower administration as the first secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The Hobbys had a son and a daughter.

Under Hobby, the Post grew in circulation and prestige. The Houston Post Company also included the radio station, KPRC, and the television station, KPRC-TV. In August, 1955, Hobby became chairman of the board of the company, with Mrs. Hobby as president and editor.

Hobby died in Houston on June 7, 1964. A state historical marker at his birthplace was dedicated at Moscow in 1964. Hobby Field and Hobby elementary school in Houston were named for him.

Oveta Culp Hobby was the editor and publisher of The Houston Post and a pioneer among U.S. women in the worlds of government and business.

She was the nation's first secretary of health, education and welfare, the first commander of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, wife of the late Texas Gov. William P. Hobby and mother of longtime Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby.

A native of Killeen in Central Texas, she was the second of seven children of lawyer Isaac William "Ike" Culp and the former Emma Elizabeth Hoover.

A biographical sketch by former Post reporter Marguerite Johnson, her close friend and source of much of this information, says young Oveta was reading from the Congressional Record at age 10. At 13, she had read the Bible through three times.

The next year, her father was elected to the Legislature, and took her with him to Austin. Although she sat in on many of the sessions, she managed to graduate high in her class in Temple High School.


Little Colonel: Digital Story about Oveta Culp Hobby
A Video by Lisa Spiro