Former Texas Governor, Activist Ann Richards, 73

Ms. Richards took time out to celebrate her 60th birthday by getting her motorcycle driver's license.

Throughout her years in office, her popularity remained high. One poll put it at more than 60 percent the year she lost to Bush.

"I may have lost the race," Ms. Richards said after the defeat. "But I don't think I lost the good feelings that people have about me in this state. That's tremendously reassuring to me."

She went on to give speeches, work as a commentator for CNN and work at a consulting firm.

Ms. Richards grew up near Waco, Tex., married civil rights lawyer David Richards, volunteered in campaigns and raised four children. She and her husband later divorced.

In the early 1960s, she helped form North Dallas Democratic Women, "basically to allow us to have something substantive to do; the regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts."

Ms. Richards served on the Travis County Commissioners Court in Austin for six years before jumping to a bigger arena in 1982. Her election as state treasurer made her the first woman elected statewide in nearly 50 years.

But politics took a toll. It helped break up her marriage. And public life forced her to be remarkably candid about her 1980 treatment for alcoholism.

"I had seen the very bottom of life," she once recalled. "I was so afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing."

The 1990 election was rough. Her Democratic primary opponent, then-Attorney General Jim Mattox, accused her of using illegal drugs. Williams, an oilman, banker and rancher, spent millions of his money on the race Ms. Richards narrowly won.

After her unsuccessful reelection campaign against Bush, Ms. Richards said she never missed being in public office.

Asked once what she might have done differently had she known she was going to be a one-term governor, Ms. Richards grinned.

"Oh, I would probably have raised more hell."