Winthrop Rockefeller, politician and philanthropist, was the first Republican governor of Arkansas since the Reconstruction era. The grandson of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., he attended Yale University and served in the U.S. Army during World War II, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He moved to Arkansas in 1953 and established Winrock Enterprises and Winrock Farms atop Petit Jean Mountain. In 1955 Governor Orval Faubus appointed him Chairman of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Rockefeller began a number of philanthropies and projects: he financed the building of a model school at Morrilton, he established a Fine Arts Center in Little Rock, he financed the construction of medical clinics in some of the state's poorest counties and he made annual gifts to the state's colleges and universities. These philanthropic activities continue to this day through the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. He ran for governor and lost in 1964, but his second run in 1966 landed him in the State Capitol. While in office he focused on Arkansas' lackluster educational system, providing funding for new buildings and increases in teacher salaries. During his second term he quietly completed the integration of Arkansas schools that had been such a political bombshell only a few years before. Rockefeller was diagnosed with cancer in 1972 and died the next year. His legacy lives on through the foundation that bears his name, which provides funding for projects across Arkansas to encourage economic development, education and racial and social justice.
"I have enjoyed the personal use of money; but I have gotten the greatest satisfaction from using it to advance my beliefs in human relations, human values." -- Winthrop Rockefeller