(Photo from HII)
- The USS Ray Mabus (DDG 147) will be built at Pascagoula’s Ingalls Shipbuilding.
U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced Wednesday that one of two new destroyers will be named for former Mississippi Governor and former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
The news came on Day 2 of the Surface Navy Association’s 37th National Symposium in Virginia.
Mabus and his daughter were present for the announcement. Liz Mabus, daughter of Mabus, will sponsor the ship.
The USS Ray Mabus (DDG 147) will be built at Pascagoula’s Ingalls Shipbuilding.
“Serving my country in uniform as a young LTJG aboard a guided missile cruiser and then, decades later, leading our naval services are the greatest privileges and most consequential times of my life,” said Mabus.
The former Governor said it is highest honor of his life is to know that sailors will defend our country and represent our values around the world for years aboard a ship bearing his name.
“That LTJG would never have imagined and this former SECNAV could not be more thankful, more honored, or more moved,” Mabus said.
About Mabus
Mabus, 76, was born and raised in Mississippi. He served in the Navy from 1970 to 1972 as a surface warfare officer aboard USS Little Rock (CLG-4). Mabus attended the University of Mississippi for his undergraduate degree, before earning a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
After working as legal counsel for former Governor William Winter, Mabus went on to serve one term as State Auditor from 1984 to 1988. In 1987, Mabus, a Democrat, won his party’s nomination for Governor in a crowded primary that was decided in a runoff. The then 39-year-old went on to serve one term as the 60th Governor of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992 after defeating Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Reed in the General Election.
Four years later, Mabus faced a tough Democratic Primary after he ruffled some feathers in his own party having sought to replace the first black chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party. The effort was unsuccessful and Mabus was primaried by then Congressman Wayne Dowdy who ran a campaign with the slogan “Save us from Mabus.”
While Mabus eked out a narrow primary win, he was defeated in the 1991 General Election by Republican Kirk Fordice who would become the state’s first Republican elected Governor since Reconstruction in 1874.
Mabus would go on to serve as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1994-1996 under former President Bill Clinton before returning to the private sector.
In 2008, Mabus actively campaigned for eventual President Barack Obama and was nominated to be the new president’s Secretary of the Navy in March 2009.
From May 2009 to January 2017, he served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy throughout the Obama Administration, the longest to serve as leader of the Navy and Marine Corps since World War I.
