John Richard "Jack" Williams was an American radio announcer and politician. After gaining public recognition through Arizona because of his work in radio, he went on to become a two-term Mayor of Phoenix, Arizona and a three-term Governor of Arizona. A constitutional amendment, approved by Arizona voters in 1968, resulted in Williams serving 8 years as governor and being the first governor of Arizona to serve a four-year term. As Mayor of Phoenix, Williams led efforts to grow the city that produced a series of annexations and construction of new governmental buildings. As governor he focused primarily on economic development within the state. His final term as governor was marred by a recall effort, led by Cesar Chavez, in response to his signing of a farm labor bill into law. [More at Wikipedia]

October 29th, 1909 in Los Angeles  /  Died:   Aug 24th, 1998