Winthrop Paul Rockefeller

Winthrop Paul "Win" Rockefeller (September 17, 1948 – July 16, 2006) was an American Republican politician and businessman who served as the 17th lieutenant governor of Arkansas from 1996 until his death in 2006. He was a member of the Rockefeller family.

Rockefeller was born in New York City, New York, the only child of Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and actress Jievute "Bobo" Paulekiute. His parents separated in 1950 and divorced four years later. His maternal grandparents were Lithuanian.

Rockefeller grew up in both the United States and in Europe and was educated at schools in New York, England, and in Switzerland. He attended the American College of Switzerland, and Pembroke College, Oxford for one year, before graduating with a Certificate from the Ranch Management program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas in 1974.

Rockefeller served from 1981 to 1995 on the Arkansas State Police Commission. In 1991, he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to serve on the President's Council on Rural America and became chairman of the council. He was a president of the Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and served on the board of directors of the national Scouting organization. Rockefeller's first foray into elective politics came when he won a narrow victory over Arkansas State Senator Charlie Cole Chaffin, the first woman elected to serve in the Arkansas State Senate and the 1994 nominee for Lieutenant Governor.

The November 1996 special election was necessitated by the resignation of Governor Jim Guy Tucker and the elevation of Lieutenant Governor Mike Huckabee to the Governorship. Rockefeller was subsequently re-elected in 1998 to a full four-year term with 67 percent of the vote, over physician Dr. Kurt Dilday. This margin far greater than the vote received by his father in the 1966 and 1968 gubernatorial elections. Rockefeller was elected once again in 2002 with 60 percent of the vote, over Arkansas State Supreme Court Justice Ron Sheffield, the first Black man nominated for statewide office as a Democrat. Money was important to the race.

As Lieutenant Governor, Rockefeller was an avid proponent of the state’s economic interests, and he often traveled at his own expense to seek out potential foreign investors, while at the same time donating his own governmental salary to charity. As Acting Governor on September 11, 2001, the day terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, he resisted calls to declare a state of emergency and instead urged Arkansans to remain calm and to donate blood. He sponsored Project ChildSafe, a national firearms safety program that has distributed hundreds of thousands of free trigger locks in Arkansas. He was honorary chairman of the Arkansas Literary Festival. In 1997, Rockefeller created Books in the Attic, a program using existing resources, Boy Scouts, and volunteers to ensure access to reading opportunities for all children. In 2004, he served as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party.

On March 22, 1971, Rockefeller married Deborah Cluett Sage of New York, the eldest daughter of Louis Davidson Sage and the former Constance Cluett Ward. The couple met while both were studying in Oxford, England. The wedding took place at the Bruton Parish Church at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

The couple had three children: