DONNA KREBBS

"The Girl whos got everything. You`ve got looks, you`ve got money, you`ve got brains, you`ve got political savvy. You sit down and write a book and -like that-boom! I guarantee it`ll be a bestseller"
-Ray Krebbs, 1981

Looks and brains she was born with, but the rest only came with years of hard work and perseverance. "Fiercely dedicated" is an apt description of this woman, and in combination with her extraordinary sensitivity to the needs of others, everything she has touched has ultimately blossomed into something wondrous and good. As some folks in Dallas cast an envious eye toward her-watching this beautiful woman so confidently address the public through mass media, taking note of her extremely handsome husband, having heard about the interest her millions are accruing in local banks-they should keep in mind that nothlng, neither her life nor her causes, came easily. '

Donna McCullum was born in Marshall, Texas, the only child of a hardworking couple of modest means. She excelled in schoolwork of all kinds and, despite the fact that she was very heavy as a child, was quite popular with her classmates. She worked part-time through high school and won a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin. There she did brilliantly, majoring in political science, with a special concentration in environmental resource management. It was in the latter classes that she became friendly with Bobby Ewing. They shared similar political convictions, and the respect they developed for one another would endure to this day.

In her junior year, Donna's parents were killed in a car crash, leaving little else but a few debts behind them. Donna had no choice but to drop out of school and go to work full-time. About a year later, at a political fund-raiser, she met the former Governor of Texas, Sam Culver. Donna was drawn to this liberal hero, and Sam was drawn to this young, vulnerable beauty.

It was, at best, a winter/spring relationship; Culver was over thirty years older than Donna. They decided to make a go of it, however, and they married in 1973. Donna did her best to ignore the whispers around the Capitol in Austin and in Washington, D.C., but once she and Sam demonstrated their happiness and effectiveness over a period of months, people stopped noticing the age difference-or, at least, they stopped commenting on it.

Donna's obvious affinity to politics, her blazing strength and energy, and her brilliant, tactically shrewd mind were an enormous boon to Culver, and, in return, he gave her the benefit of some forty years of political experience.

In Texas, being married to Sam Culver was being married to God. He was by far the most popular governor in the last hundred years, and, until his death, the most powerful member of his political party. She learned to be a perfect hostess, not batting an eye at receptions for over two hundred, a visit from the President or from dignitaries from the Middle East.

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