William P. Hobby Jr. & Diana Poteat Hobby Family Collection

Diana Poteat Stallings Hobby (1931-2014), the daughter of writer Laurence T. Stallings and his wife, Helen Poteat, was born in New York City. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1952 and received her Ph.D. at Rice University in 1981. She was book editor of the Houston Post, a longtime editor of Studies in English Literature at Rice, and a lifelong champion of the humanities, libraries, and nature conservancy.

William Pettus Hobby, Jr. (1931- ), born in Houston and a 1953 Rice University graduate, was lieutenant governor of Texas, 1973-1991. He is the namesake son of a former Texas governor and of Oveta Culp Hobby, director of the Women's Army Corps and first secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. William P. Hobby, Sr., and his wife were publishers of the Houston Post, of which their son was president, 1963-1983. He was chancellor of the University of Houston system, 1995-1997, and taught at the University of Texas at at Rice. Married in 1954, the Hobbys had four children: Laura Hobby Beckworth, Paul W. Hobby, Andrew P. Hobby, and Katherine Hobby Gibson.