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John F. Kennedy Jr.’s New York based political magazine, George, has recently released it’s top 50 listing of the most powerful people in the United States. Yazoo City’s own Haley Barbour is included in this list. Barbour’s firm, Barbour Griffith & Rogers was also recently chosen by Fortune magazine as the second most influential lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. The Fortune ranking resulted from a survey of Members of Congress, Administration officials, news media, trade associations and other lobbyists done by Fortune. Microsoft, BellSouth, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Southern Company are just a few of the many companies that Barbour represents in Washington.

These accomplishments are no surprise to anyone from Yazoo City or within the Mississippi Republican party as Barbour has been a trailblazer in many areas for quite some time. In fact, many state political observers say that Mississippi would not have a Republican Party of any substance if it were not for the hard work and great political minds of Barbour and Greenville businessman, Clarke Reed. There must be something in the water in Yazoo City considering this small town on the edge of the Delta has produced some national heavyweights not only in politics, but in the literary and entertainment arenas as well.

Barbour’s list of political accomplishments is quite long and at 51, many say that he’s just begun. Already he has run for the U.S. Senate, served as President Reagan’s White House Political Affairs Director and as Chairman of the Republican National Committee for two terms, which under his leadership made history by winning the greatest midterm majority sweep of the 20th Century.

Born the youngest of three boys in 1947 in Yazoo City, Barbour is a seventh-generation Mississippian and is very proud of it. He comes from a long line of lawyers and judges carrying on the tradition by becoming a lawyer himself. In fact, the Barbour’s have been practicing law on the very same block in Yazoo City for over 100 years.

Barbour and his brothers tragically lost their father when Haley was two. They were raised by their mother of whom he is very proud. "My mother was an unusual person," says Barbour. "As long as we upheld our end of the deal, she would give us a lot of rope and I was lucky enough not to hang myself with it."

The Barbours participated in sports and all of the other activities that were available to young people in Yazoo City during the late fifties and early sixties.

This brings up another interesting point about Barbour’s mother. She was very interested in sports and was the first woman ever to be president of the "Touchdown Club" which was the booster club for the local high school football team. Some of his fondest memories include his mother taking him and his brothers to Chicago and Kansas City to see the major league teams play.

In 1965, Barbour entered Ole Miss but never actually obtained a bachelor’s degree. "I may be one of the only Ole Miss law school graduates who doesn’t have an undergraduate degree," laughs Barbour. It was politics, even then, that caught his attention, causing him to leave school.

"My oldest brother, Jeppie, quit his job at the bank and ran for mayor as a Republican and was elected at the age of 27," says Barbour. "That experience got me interested in politics. It was very exciting." It was the Spring of 1968, and unbeknownst to him, his life’s career had begun.

Barbour’s interest in politics continued and he found more inspiration from Richard Nixon. "I dropped out of Ole Miss again the Fall of my senior year to work in the 1968 Nixon campaign covering a part of Mississippi for them," says Barbour. "In 1969, I dropped out of school again to become the state director for the census, which was a political appointment, so until the Summer of 1970 I ran the census in Mississippi."

In the Fall of 1970, Barbour entered law school, finishing in 1973. From 1973 to 1976, Barbour ran the state Republican party as it’s executive director. "I saw a political poll in 1968 for the first time and in Mississippi only six percent identified themselves as Republicans," says Barbour. "Nixon carried only fourteen percent of the vote in Mississippi in 1968 which was the smallest percentage of any state in the country." This gives us an idea of how much things have changed in thirty years.

In 1977, Barbour entered the family law practice in Yazoo City, but in 1978, he managed to help elect Thad Cochran as Mississippi’s first Republican Senator in over 100 years. By now, Barbour was considered a major political dynamo and in 1982, Barbour was ready to try a run himself. He decided on Sen. John Stennis’ seat.

"I won the primary and lost the general election," says Barbour. "We knew that if Sen. Stennis stayed in good health and ran a good campaign that he would likely win. The whole issue was whether or not at his age of 81 he should be elected to another term. He was one of the most respected politicians in Mississippi or anywhere else and I held that same respect for him. I used to say that we were two conservatives, two Reagan supporters, and two Presbyterians. There was really very little that we disagreed on except for party and I thought that at 81 it was time for Mississippi to make a change. We made that change in 1988, with the election of Trent Lott."

In 1985, President Reagan asked Barbour to come to work in the White House. He served in this capacity for two years and now refers to President Reagan as "the greatest president of my lifetime." At the end of Ô86, Barbour returned to Yazoo City preparing for another run against Sen. Stennis, however this time Stennis decided that it was time to step down. Barbour deferred to Lott.

With Lott’s Senate win, Barbour turned to his law practice and began representing companies and organizations in front of the government for the first time - lobbying. "Today we represent these organizations in front of the federal and in some cases, state governments," says Barbour.

In 1993, Barbour was elected as the Chairman for the Republican National Committee. Besides the Majority sweep, which garnered GOP control of both houses of Congress, during Barbour’s tenure, the RNC also broke all fund raising records. It donated record-breaking amounts to the largest field of candidates in GOP history, created an award winning magazine with a circulation of 750,000, and built a self-sustaining state-of-the-art tv studio that among other enterprises, produced a weekly national news show.

"To be chairman of a national political party when the other party has control of the White House, gives you an opportunity to make a big difference in terms of politics, campaigns, and also in terms of helping your party develop public policy," says Barbour. "As chairman of the party, I had the opportunity to interject my own ideas about good policy as well as the way to manage our resources. During this period of time we raised and spent $330 million and to be in a position to manage and direct those resources is exciting."

"The result was that we won back control of both houses for the first time in 40 years and maintained those majorities in ‘96 which our party had not been done since the twenties. We went from 17 Republican governors when I came in, to 32 when I left. Now, these Republican governors are proving at the state level that you can cut taxes, reduce spending, have real welfare reform, improve education and crack down on drugs and toughen up the criminal justice system and at the same time improve the quality of life for your citizens and improve the economic climate of your state. These guys are showing that if you put Republican policies into effect, that they will work. So, these governors are a very important part of my four years as chairman of the party."

Barbour is to quick to mention Governor Fordice and how the state has benefited during his watch.

"The last few years have been very good years for Mississippi," says Barbour. "One thing that Kirk has worked hard to do is be a good governor for the business climate because he knows that’s what creates jobs and incomes and opportunities for people.

"I see some states electing governors whose first loyalty is to the trial lawyers or the labor unions and that would be tragic for Mississippi. I do hope that we’ll elect a governor like George Bush of Texas who understands that the best thing a governor can do for the citizens is to provide a business climate that creates higher paying jobs and also jobs that our unskilled workers can have as an alternative to welfare. Fordice understood this and he worked hard at it. He is a guy that you can agree with on the issues and can still get mad at, but he is for the "right stuff" and that’s a lot more important than someone that you can always be happy with. The bottom line: businesses create jobs and without employers you don’t have any employees."

After his terms as Chairman of the RNC, Barbour returned to his law firm in 1997 where he has been practicing law and participating in other businesses in which the firm is involved.

As the conversation turns back to Mississippi and the Delta, Barbour pauses and becomes serious reflecting on the question of where Mississippi is today as opposed to the days of his youth in Yazoo City.

"In Mississippi today, we have the best economy of my lifetime," says Barbour. "Our state has changed economically enough to take advantage of this opportunity to allow more jobs to go to so many more people who now have much higher incomes than their parents or grandparents ever thought about. If we continue to bring in industries that pay higher wages and at the same time provide jobs for our unskilled work force, we’ll continue to have a great economic future. Socially, we have some of the problems of drugs and crime that some of the big cities have, but there is no question that our state has changed very much for the better since I was a child.

"All across the South, there are more and more people who are returning "home" and they are finding that home is a lot better than the places they had gone to looking for opportunity."

Today, Barbour is one of the most respected political figures in the U.S. He is a Director of the Jackson based Skytel the worldwide messaging company and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Chemical Corporation and of Blount International, Inc., a Montgomery, Alabama-based manufacturer of various industrial, forestry, outdoor and sporting goods products. Barbour’s leadership extends into international affairs as well. He serves as Deputy Chairman of the International Democrat Union, an organization founded by President Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher which unites center-right, free-enterprise, democratic parties around the world.

He is also Chairman of the Policy Impact Communications, a Washington, DC based public relations firm specializing in communications that affect public policy issues and is also Managing Director and Vice Chairman of International Equity Partners, L.P., a Washington based private equity and project development company as well as a Managing Director of National Environmental Strategies, an environmental policy consulting firm in Washington. Barbour and his wife have two sons.

But as for the accomplishment that he is most proud, without hesitation he points to his family. "I have had chances to do things that the vast majority of people would never dream of," says Barbour. "But, they have taken me away from my wife and children a lot and if there is one thing that sticks with me despite all of my absences or being consumed by the White House or the millions of other things, it is that Marsha and I have two really fine sons who are good boys, good students and good athletes. Mostly because of my wife they have turned out pretty darn good. I know many people who have done a lot of the things that I have done in life and they can’t say this. The family and our children are what I am the most proud of."