Jay Rockefeller |
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John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a Democratic U.S. Senator from West Virginia since 1985. He was Governor of West Virginia from 1977 to 1985. As a great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, he is the only current politician of the prominent six-generation Rockefeller family and the only Democrat in what has been a traditionally progressive Republican dynasty.
He is related to several prominent Republican supporters and former officeholders: he is a great-grandson of Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich; a nephew of banker David Rockefeller and Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and of former U.S. Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller; son-in-law of former Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois; and cousin of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Paul Rockefeller.
Born on Friday, June 18, 1937, at 9:30 PM at New York Hospital in New York City to John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Ferry Hooker just 26 days after the death of his great-grandfather John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Jay Rockefeller graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1954. He graduated from Harvard University in 1961 with a B.A. in Far Eastern Languages and History after having spent three years studying Japanese at the International Christian University in Tokyo.