Former Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes has earned the adulation of many Americans for enriching Texas’ political history. In 2001, Lady Bird Johnson, Lowell Lebermann, George Christian, Larry Temple and Bernard Rapoport, among other donors, established an endowment in his name at The University of Texas at Austin.

They funneled around $1.25 million to create the endowment, called The Ben Barnes Fellowship in Public Leadership. Part of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, this endowment acknowledges Barnes’ high regard for higher education.

This endowment looks for young Americans who want to prepare for a life of public service even as they exhibit precocious leadership skills. Every year, it awards $25,000 annually to the country’s next leaders.

At present, Ben Barnes is still active in politics, but in another way. He heads Entrecorp, a company he founded in Austin to advise and lobby in behalf of firms in Texas.

Ben Barnes ranks among the most distinguished alumni of the University of Texas – Austin. In fact, he realized he wanted to run for public office when he was a freshman at the UT School of Law. After a successful campaign, he was voted to the Texas House of Representatives in 1960.

Near the end of his law studies in 1965, Ben Barnes ascended to the position of Speaker of the House, the youngest in the country. For this reason, the Texas Junior Chamber of Commerce acclaimed him as one of the state’s “Five Outstanding Young Men.”

Later he was voted Texas’ lieutenant governor. At 30 years old, Ben Barnes was the youngest person to hold that office in Texas. Aware of this, the US Chamber of Commerce honored him as one of America’s “Ten Outstanding Young Men.”

Ben Barnes’s alma mater also took good stock of Barnes. The University of Texas named him Distinguished Alumnus in 1995.