John Connally

American politician, lawyer, and businessman. He was wounded in the gunfire assassination of President Kennedy on 23 November 1963. On 23 November 1963, while riding alongside President Kennedy and the First Lady, he survived being hit by the assassin's bullet which left scars on his back, chest, wrist and thigh. He drifted in and out of consciousness in the hospital during Kennedy's funeral procession.

Connelly was born into a poverty-stricken home, the son of a tenant farmer. He served in the navy in World War II before earning his law degree from the University of Texas. He went into politics and became a good friend and protégé of Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1961, he served for a few months as John F. Kennedy's Secretary of the Navy than left to pursue his own political career ambitions to be governor of Texas.

Connally was the Democratic governor of Texas from 1963 to 1968. Along with the influence of LBJ, he was a major player in Texas politics in the '60s and early '70s. He worked under President Nixon as Treasury secretary from 1971-1972. After Senator George McGovern was nominated Democratic presidential candidate in 1972, Connally became disillusioned with the party. In 1973, after LBJ's death, Connally switched party allegiance and became a Republican. He tried to run as a Republican candidate for the 1980 elections but after his dismal showing, withdrew from politics. At 65, he was forced into retirement by his law firm. He went into business and declared bankruptcy in July 1987 with debts of 25 to 48 million dollars.

In 1941, he married his wife, Nellie, a former Bluebonnet Belle of his alma mater, the University of Texas, and they had two sons and two daughters. The eldest of their children, Kathleen died in an apparent suicide in 1959.

John Connally died on 15 June 1993 of pulmonary fibrosis at 76 in Houston, TX.