Tobin Armstrong Six prominent Texans have been selected for induction into the Texas Heritage Hall of Honor on September 24, opening day of the 2010 State Fair of Texas. The new inductees, distinguished by their contributions to agriculture and ranching, join 54 previously enshrined members.

Tobin and Anne Armstrong, Susan Combs, Morgan Jones, Wade Lewis Pennington, and John Slaughter have been elected to membership for 2010. The Texas Heritage Hall of Honor was established in 1992 by the State Fair of Texas to recognize lifetime achievement in agriculture.

As national, state and cattle industry leaders, Tobin and Anne Armstrong were always a team. During their 55-year marriage they owned and operated the Armstrong Ranch in Kenedy County - a ranch recognized for its production of beef cattle, breeding stock, abundant wildlife and native habitat. The ranch has been run as a family partnership since its founding in 1852. Tobin served the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association for 48 years and was instrumental in the consolidation of the Livestock and Meat Board, the Beef Council and the National Cattleman's Association. Tobin and his wife Anne were active in the GOP; she served as a counselor to Presidents Nixon and Ford and was the first woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. In 1987, President Reagan awarded Anne with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She advised to both President Bushes and Governors Clement and Bush. Anne died in 2008, following Tobin's death in 2005.

Anne Armstrong Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs believes in transparency. She posted the expenses of the Comptroller's office online her third day on the job. As the first female elected to the position of Texas Agriculture Commissioner, she reduced the TDA's budget by 18 percent without reducing essential services. Combs ignited economic growth, promoted Texas products, and launched one of the strongest school nutrition policies in the nation. Born in San Antonio, she has a ranching operation in Brewster County on the same ranch owned by her great-grandfather more than a century ago.

A childhood fascination with railroads eventually brought Welshman Morgan Jones to America in 1866. The 27-year old was immediately hired as a foreman on the country's first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific. Much of his career involved building railways in semiarid, largely unoccupied regions. Despite grueling projects and seemingly impossible deadlines, his expertise in rapid construction became legendary. Considered a local hero in Fort Worth for completing the Texas & Pacific line to the city in 1876, his legacy is as large as the Texas Plains he's credited with developing. Jones died in Abilene in 1926.

In the East Texas town of Grapeland, the name Wade Lewis Pennington is synonymous with watermelons. Born on land farmed by generations of his family in Houston County, Pennington served in the U.S. Army before returning home in early 1946 to begin a 70-year ca- reer in farming and ranching. Pennington grew a small watermelon patch into a nationwide business that was, and probably always will be, a family endeavor. Baylor University recognized Wade Pennington and Sons as the 2004 Texas Family Business of the Year. Hedied March 20, 2010.

John B. Slaughter was born in Sabine County, Texas. The trail driver, Indian fighter, rancher and farmer started out with 30 or 40 head of cattle from his father before becoming one of the best known and respected cattleman in the state. He crossed buffalo with Brahma cows (cattalo) and succeeded with a second buffalo cross, the "Vernier." Slaughter relocated his "U Lazy S" brand to Sarza County in 1901, where he sold 50,000 acres to cereal magnate C.W. Post in 1907 for the town of Post to be built. Just shy of his 80th birthday in 1928, Slaughter died of heart failure. He had spent the previous day in the saddle during a roundup.