This oil millionaire is a close friend of President Bush and a major GOP donor, who has chaired Arkansas fundraising for Ford, Reagan, President Bush and Bush. The Reagan and Bush administrations appointed him to the National Petroleum Council and the John F. Kennedy Center Advisory Committee. Pruet toured Latin America as a trade advisor to President Bush, who also dispatched him to the former Soviet Union to advise him on the oil industry there. He is a past director of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and First National Bank of El Dorado. The $57,000 that Pruet gave federal PACs and candidates in the ’98 election cycle ranked him among the country’s top 400 political donors that year. “I give for better government, less government,” he said.