AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Former Gov. Bill Clements, first Republican governor since Reconstruction, has died at 94.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he has been contacted by the Clements family that the former governor had died in a Dallas hospital.
Clements looked to completely change the face of Texas politics when he took office in 1979. The Texas oilman, who started out as an oil roughneck, believed state government should be operated as a big business.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)