37th Lieutenant Governor of Texas from January 16, 1973 to January 15, 1991, serving for a record 18 years in office. He was the last Lieutenant Governor to serve a two year term (having been elected in 1972) and first to serve a four year term when the Texas Constitution was amended to lengthen terms for statewide elected officeholders to four years beginning with the 1974 elections. Born in Houston, Hobby was the only son of William P. Hobby, Sr., and Oveta Culp Hobby. Both of his grandfathers served in the Texas Legislature. His father also served as Lieutenant Governor from 1915 to 1917 and later ascended to the governorship (following the resignation of James Ferguson), serving from 1917 to 1921 and his mother, a Democrat, was the first person appointed to the position of US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican. She served in this position, now the US Department of Health and Human Services from 1953 to 1955. Hobby graduated from the St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and furthered his education at Rice University in Houston, Texas . Following graduation from Rice, Hobby served in the United States Navy from 1953 to 1957 in naval intelligence. During his military service, he married Diana Poteat Stallings of North Carolina: they went on to have four children: Laura Beckworth, Paul Hobby, Andrew Hobby and Kate Gibson including ten grandchildren. Following his military service, Hobby joined the staff of the Houston Post, the flagship of his family's communication 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 H&C Communications until his retirement in 1996. Hobby's path in politics began when he served as Parliamentarian of the Texas Senate under then-Lieutenant Governor Ben Ramsey in 1959. He was appointed to the Presidential Task Force on Suburban Problems and to the National Citizens Advisory Committee on Vocational Rehabilitation by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Then-Texas Gov. Preston Smith appointed him to the Texas Air Control Board. Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes appointed him to the chairmanship of the Senate Interim Committee on Welfare Reform in 1969, he later resigned from the Air Control Board in 1971 to focus on his campaign for Lieutenant Governor. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1972 and re-elected in 1974, 1978, 1982 and again in 1986, all overwhelmingly. In addition to serving as President of the State Senate, Hobby served in numerous other political leadership capacities. These included appointments as Chairman of the Governor's Energy Advisory Council (GEAC) (1973-1977), the Texas Energy Advisory Council (TEAC) (1977-1979), the special advisory committee which recommended the Texas Sunset Act (1970s), and the Joint Advisory Committee on Educational Services to the Deaf (1976-1979); Co-Chairman of the Texas Energy and Natural Resource Advisory Council (TENRAC) (1979-1983); Vice Chairman of the Criminal Justice Policy Council; Ex-Officio member of the Texas Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and a member of the Select Committee on Public Education (1983-1984). He also served as Chairman of the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors in 1974. In 1985, he joined the mental health activist, Helen J. Farabee of Wichita Falls, in convincing the legislature to create the Department of Mental Health Retardation, known as MHMR. He chose not to seek re-election to an unprecedented sixth term as Lieutenant Governor in 1990 and was succeeded by fellow Democratic then-State Comptroller Bob Bullock. On May 5, 1989, Hobby was honored by the Texas State Senate and the William P. Hobby State Office Building in Austin was named in his honor, which houses the Texas Department of Insurance. Following his record service in Austin, Hobby returned to Houston and served as Chancellor of the University of Houston System from 1995 to 1997. His son, Paul William Hobby was the Democratic nominee for Texas State Comptroller of Public Accounts in 1998, narrowly losing to Republican Carole Keeton Strayhorn by less than 20,000 votes. The Hobby School of Public Affairs on the campus of the University of Houston is named for the Hobby family.