Biography
Ray Mabus
Raymond E. Mabus was the 60th governor of Mississippi, serving from 1988 to1992. Although Mabus was the youngest governor in America at the time of his inauguration on Jan. 12, 1988, he had accumulated an impressive record of public service and academic achievements.
Born Oct. 11, 1948, in Choctaw County, Miss., Mabus had earned three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Mississippi, summa cum laude; a master's in political science from Johns Hopkins; and a law degree from Harvard, magna cum laude. He had been offered a Fulbright Scholarship, had held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and had traveled widely throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and Latin America.
In addition to a two-year tour of duty in the United States Navy aboard a guided-missile cruiser, Mabus had also served as a law clerk in the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and as a legal counsel to a subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee. As legal counsel to Gov. William Winter, he was instrumental in the drafting and enactment of the Education Reform Act of 1982, a stricter law against driving under the influence of alcohol, and an open records law.
In 1983 Mabus was elected state auditor in his first campaign for public office. As state auditor, Mabus became a highly visible and sometime controversial public figure. He vigorously enforced the state's financial documentation laws and held public officials to a strict accounting for the expenditure of state funds.
In 1988, while not yet 40 years old, Mabus was elected governor on the slogan, "Mississippi Will Never Be Last Again." Soon after his inauguration, Gov. Mabus presented a comprehensive and ambitious legislative package to the state legislature. Among Gov. Mabus' most significant achievements were a teacher pay raise that temporarily brought Mississippi teachers up to the Southeastern average; a reorganization of the executive branch of government, and a law providing for the unit system of county government. He pushed through landmark education legislation called Mississippi BEST (Better Education for Success Tomorrow).
He was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association and the Southern Regional Education Board and honorary co-chair of the United Negro College Fund in Mississippi. He served as president of the Council of State Governments. He was named one of the nation's top 10 education governors by Fortune Magazine and received the Social Responsibility Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1990.
Gov. Mabus was appointed U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia by Pres. Bill Clinton and served in that position from 1994 through 1996. He is engaged in business in Jackson.
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