John Thomas Steen Jr. (born c. 1949),is a lawyer from San Antonio,Texas,who served as the Texas Secretary of State from 2012 to 2014. Steen was appointed by GovernorRick Perry on November 27,2012,after Esperanza Andrade resigned four days earlier from the position that she had held for more than four years. Steen is Texas' 108th Secretary of State and one of six officials to have formed the Executive Department of state government.
After just over a year in the position,Steen resigned and was succeeded on January 7,2014,by another Perry appointee,Nandita Berry,an Indian native and naturalized American citizen from Houston.[1]
Background
Steen is one of five children born to John Steen Sr. (1922–2003),a native of Yoakum in southeast Texas,who owned insurance companies and also held ranching interests in surrounding counties. His mother was the former Nell Donnell,who predeceased her husband. The senior Steen was the last chairman of the San Antonio Good Government League and was active in the 1976 United States Bicentennial and in the National Conference of Christians and Jews. For twenty years,the senior Steen was an elected member of the Alamo Community College District. He served two terms on the San Antonio City Council and was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor in 1981 to succeed Lila Cockrell,but Henry Cisneros was instead elected to the first of four two-year terms in the position.[2]
The Steens have three children,John Steen III,James Higbie Clement "Jamey" Steen,and Ida "Illa" Louise Larkin Steen Gaunt,who is married to William Hartley Gaunt of Houston,who has roots in Indiana and Kansas. The Gaunts were wed at the King Ranch in 2012.[2][3]
John Steen's siblings are the late Nancy Nell Steen Boyce;Susan Margaret Steen Fainter,wife of John Wells Fainter Jr.,of Austin and the 93rd Texas Secretary of State;Rolly Robert Steen,II,M.D.,of Dallas and the namesake of his paternal grandfather,and Stewart James Steen of Kerrville,Texas.[2]
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Commander's Award for Public Service 
