Donna Rice Hughes

Donna Rice Hughes (born January 7, 1958) was a figure in the sex scandal that ended the 1987 campaign of Gary Hart in the Democratic presidential primaries. Since the mid-1990s, she has become known as an activist for protecting children from pornography, primarily on the Internet.

Early years

The daughter of a highway engineer and secretary, Donna lived in Florida, Atlanta, and South Carolina. A self-described over-achiever, Donna Rice began a modeling career at age 13 and worked at getting straight A's in high school while attending church and working in clothing stores. She graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1980, where she was both an honors student and cheerleader. After winning the Miss South Carolina World beauty pageant, she went to New York City to compete in the national event. After not winning nationally, she remained in New York and pursued an acting and modeling career. In 1982, she moved to Miami, worked as a television actress, and for a pharmaceutical company and a small marketing business. It wasn't until March 1987 that she first met former senator Gary Hart at a Miami fundraiser. [1]

Sex scandal

Soon after meeting Rice, Hart announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Having put up a surprisingly strong fight in 1984 against the eventual nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale, he was perceived as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 1988. But rumors quickly began circulating about Hart's infidelity to his wife, leading the candidate to challenge the media to follow him around and saying that anybody who did so would "be very bored." Shortly thereafter, two reporters for the Miami Herald observed Rice coming out of Hart's Washington, DC townhouse and published the story. Hart contended that the reporters had no way of knowing when Rice arrived or what she was doing there, but his popularity still took an major hit, and polls immediately found him 10 points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Two days after the story broke, the Herald obtained photographs of Rice sitting in Hart's lap in Bimini aboard a sailboat called the Monkey Business. The National Enquirer published the photographs, and a week later, Hart dropped out of the race.

After the scandal

Donna met her future husband, Jack Hughes, on a blind date in 1991, and they married in May 7, 1994. [2].

From 1994 to 1999, she worked as Communications Director and Vice President of "Enough Is Enough", a nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping illegal pornography, assisting victims, and making the Internet safe for children. [3]. In 1999, Rice Hughes was appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to a congressional panel [4]. As of 2005, she is the volunteer president of "Enough is Enough" and has co-written a book entitled Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace (ISBN 080075672X).