William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. Before his election as President, Clinton served nearly 12 years as the 50th and 52nd Governor of Arkansas. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is the junior United States Senator from New York, where they both reside. Clinton founded and heads the William J. Clinton Foundation. ---------------------------------------------- William Jefferson Blythe III was born in Hope, Arkansas, and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was named after his father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., a traveling salesman who died in a car accident three months before he was born. His mother, born Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923–1994), remarried in 1950 to Roger Clinton. Roger Clinton owned an automobile dealership business with his brother, Raymond. The young Billy, as he was called, was raised by his mother and stepfather, assuming his last name "Clinton" throughout elementary school but not formally changing it until he was 14. Clinton grew up in a traditional, albeit blended, family; however, according to Clinton, his stepfather was a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused Clinton's mother and sometimes Clinton's half-brother Roger, Jr. Bill Clinton as a child went to St. John's Catholic School and Ramble Elementary School. While at Hot Springs High School, Clinton was an excellent student and a talented saxophonist. He considered dedicating his life to music, but a visit to the White House to meet then-President John F. Kennedy following his election as a Boys Nation Senator led him to pursue a career in politics. Clinton was a member of Youth Order of DeMolay but never actually became a Freemason. Clinton received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.F.S.) degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., where he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega, worked for Senator J. William Fulbright, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he played rugby union as a lock, and later in life he played for the Little Rock Rugby club in Arkansas. There he also participated in the Vietnam War protest movement. After Oxford, Clinton obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School in 1973. While at Yale, he began dating classmate Hillary Rodham. They married in 1975 and their only child, Chelsea, was born in 1980. Clinton is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity, Inc.