Rita Crocker Clements

MRS. WILLIAM P. CLEMENTS, JR., of Dallas, was appointed to the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System by Governor George W. Bush in November 1996, to complete the term of Ms. Linnet F. Deily, who resigned to pursue business interests outside Texas. The term expired in February 2001 and Mrs. Clements was reappointed to the Board by Governor Rick Perry in April 2001 for a term to expire in February 2007.

Regent Clements is a Vice Chairman of the Board and chairs the Health Affairs Committee. She also serves on the Audit, Compliance, and Management Review Committee; the Facilities Planning and Construction Committee; the Student, Faculty, and Staff Campus Life Committee. Vice Chairman Clements has also served as Chairman of the Facilities Planning and Construction Committee and as a Regental representative on the Board of Directors of The University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO).

Mrs. Clements has served as a director of Team Bank and Bank One, Texas, as well as La Quinta Motor Inns and the Dr Pepper Company. From 1972 to 1975, she was a member of the National Advisory Council for Economic Opportunity, and in 1991 she served on the President's Task Force on U.S. Government International Broadcasting.

Vice Chairman Clements, a former First Lady of Texas, graduated cum laude from The University of Texas at Austin in 1953, with a major in Spanish and minors in history and government. In 1991, she was named a Distinguished Alumna of the University. She has served on a variety of governmental commissions and on the boards of many philanthropic and public service organizations, and she has been active in political committees and campaigns at the local, state, and national levels.

Her husband, William P. Clements, Jr., served two terms as Governor of Texas - from 1979 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1991. Mrs. Clements was born in Newton, Kansas, and grew up on ranches in Kansas and in the Hill Country of Texas. She is a graduate of the Hockaday School in Dallas and attended Wellesley College in Boston before completing her undergraduate degree at U. T. Austin.

She has been a member of the U. T. Austin Development Board and served on the Executive Council of the University's Ex-Students' Association. She also serves as a life board member of the Hockaday School and served as chairman of the board of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series at Southern Methodist University. She is currently serving as Chairman of the Salvation Army Dallas Metroplex Advisory Board.

Her other current board memberships include the Center for Human Nutrition, Charter 100, the Communities Foundation of Texas, the Crystal Charity Ball, the Dallas Historical Society, the Friends of the Governor's Mansion Foundation, the O'Donnell Foundation, and the Robert and Nancy Dedman Foundation.

She has been active in Republican Party politics since the 1950s, serving as a precinct chairman from 1958 to 1961 and county canvass chairman from 1960 to 1963. She also has been a member of the board of the National Federation of Republican Women, a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1968 and 1992, a member of the Republican National Finance Committee from 1971 to 1972, and a member of the Republican National Committee from 1973 to 1975. She has been active in numerous state and national political campaigns.

Mrs. Clements has been recognized for her commitment to historic preservation, particularly her work in restoring the Texas Governor's Mansion. For that activity, she received the Miss Ima Hogg Special Award from the Winedale Society and the Ruth B. Lester Award from the Texas Historical Commission. She was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.

last updated 2005