Jay Rockefeller, American lawyer and politician, 29th Governor of West Virginia
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virginia (1977–85). Rockefeller moved to Emmons, West Virginia, to serve as a VISTA worker in 1964 and was first elected to public office as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates (1966-1968). Rockefeller was later elected secretary of state of West Virginia (1968–1973) and was president of West Virginia Wesleyan College (1973–1975). He became the state's senior U.S. senator when the long-serving Senator Robert Byrd died in June 2010.
Rockefeller is the great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who died less than a month before Jay's birth. He was the only serving politician of the Rockefeller family during his tenure in the United States Senate, and the only one to have held office as a Democrat, in what has been a traditionally Republican family (though he too was originally a Republican until he decided to run for office in the then-heavily Democratic state). Rockefeller did not seek reelection in 2014 and was succeeded by Republican U.S. Representative Shelley Moore Capito.