Enron founder Ken Lay dies of heart disease

Before Enron became a scandal-tainted punchline, the company was the single largest contributor to President Bush, who nicknamed Lay “Kenny Boy.” Lay said he was closer to the president’s father, former President George H.W. Bush. He kept a framed photo of himself with a smiling elder Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush.

“It was sad to hear the news of the death of someone I considered a friend,” the elder Bush said in a statement Wednesday.

But White House press secretary Tony Snow said Wednesday he hadn’t discussed Lay’s death with the president.

“The president has described Ken Lay as an acquaintance. And many of the president’s acquaintances have passed on during his time in office,” Snow said.

During the trial Lay had been expected to charm jurors, but instead came across as irritable and combative.

Lay defended his personal spending, including a $200,000 yacht for Linda Lay’s birthday party in early 2001, despite $100 million in personal debt. He told jurors it was “difficult to turn off that lifestyle like a spigot.”

Lay also defended how he borrowed more than $70 million from Enron in 2001 — even as the company was spiraling — and repaid most of those loans with company stock.

“I wanted very badly to believe what they were saying,” juror Wendy Vaughan said after the verdicts were announced. “There were places in the testimony I felt their character was questionable.”

Lay was born in Tyrone, Mo. and spent his childhood helping his family make ends meet. His father ran a general store and sold stoves until he became a minister, and Lay delivered newspapers and mowed lawns. He attended the University of Missouri, found his calling in economics, and went to work at Exxon Mobil Corp.’s predecessor, Humble Oil & Refining.

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He joined the Navy, served his time at the Pentagon, and then served as undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before he returned to business. He became an executive at Florida Gas, then Transco Energy in Houston, and later became CEO of Houston Natural Gas. In 1985, HNG merged with InterNorth in Omaha, Neb. to form Enron, and Lay became chairman and CEO of the combined company the next year.

Lay is survived by his wife, five children and stepchildren and 12 grandchildren.

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