Family fortune

These 4 Houstonians cash in on Forbes' list of richest American families

Randa Williams Duncan enjoys the highest profile among Houston's richest family.

Photo courtesy of Texas Monthly/Gittings Photography

While 2020 has been a nightmare financially for many, some locals have cashed in. One example is Houston’s Duncan family, with a net worth of $22 billion, who once again appear on the annual Forbes ranking of America's richest families. (The Duncans come in at No. 11 on the Forbes list.)

The four children of pipeline mogul Dan Duncan — Randa Duncan Williams, Milane Frantz, Dannine Duncan Avara, and Scott Duncan — inherited a $10 billion estate from their father when he died in 2010. The net worth of each heir exceeds $5 billion.

Randa enjoys the highest profile among the four Duncan siblings. She is chairwoman of Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners, the pipeline giant founded by her father, and owns Austin-based Texas Monthly magazine.

Elsewhere in Texas, The Walton family once again reigns as the richest family in the U.S., according Forbes. Their net worth: $247 billion. In its 2020 budget year, Walmart racked up revenue of $524 billion — and the company continues to rack up riches for heirs of the retail giant’s founders.

That $247 billion sum represents close to half of Walmart’s annual revenue and is equivalent to the size of Chile’s economy.

The net worth of Fort Worth billionaire Alice Walton, the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, accounts for a little over one-fourth of the family fortune. Forbes estimates she’s worth about $68 billion, making her the richest resident of Texas and the richest Walton heir. If Alice Walton were a family unto herself, she’d rank as the fourth wealthiest clan in the country.

Descendants of Sam Walton and brother Bud Walton own about half of Walmart’s stock. Forbes says the stock generates more than $700 million in annual dividend income for the family.

Alice Walton isn’t the only Texan who’s a member of the Walton dynasty. Ann Walton Kroenke, one of the two daughters of Bud Walton, lives on a 535,000-acre ranch about 50 miles northwest of Wichita Falls. She is worth about $9.1 billion and is married to sports and entertainment titan Stan Kroenke, who’s worth an estimated $8.3 billion.

While all of the Waltons don’t live in the Lone Star State, members of four of the country’s other wealthiest families do.

At No. 15 among the country’s wealthiest families is the Butt family, with a net worth of $17.8 billion. Charles Butt is chairman and CEO of the H-E-B grocery chain, based in San Antonio and parent company of Dallas-based Central Market. Butt, grandson of H-E-B founder Florence Butt, and three relatives — sister Mary Butt Crook and two nephews — own H-E-B. The company’s annual sales are around $28 billion.

The Hunt family, whose members are descendants of oil wildcatter H.L. Hunt, sit at No. 18 on the Forbes list with a net worth of $15.5 billion. The richest among them are billionaires Ray Lee Hunt and W. Herbert Hunt, both of Dallas.

Rounding out the Texas contingent on the Forbes list are members of Fort Worth’s Bass family. The Basses hold down the No. 30 spot with a net worth of $10.8 billion. The four Bass brothers — Sid, Edward, Robert, and Lee — each inherited $2.8 billion from their oil tycoon uncle Sid Richardson after his death in 1959. Robert is the wealthiest of the foursome.

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room for improvement

Houston has work to do on ranking of America's fittest cities for 2026

Photo by Gabin Vallet on Unsplash

About 74 percent of Houstonians have exercised in the past month.

Houstonians are more fit than they used to be, but the city still needs to hit the gym. The Bayou City ranks in the middle of the pack in a ranking of America's fittest cities.

This year’s American Fitness Index puts Houston at No. 44 among the country’s 100 most populated cities, up from 49th place last year. Houston ranks 26th in the personal health category and a disappointing 64th in the community and environment category.

The index shows 74 percent of Houston residents had exercised in the previous month, 57 percent had met aerobic activity guidelines, and 33 percent had met aerobic and strength activity guidelines. The first two of those numbers are below the 100-city averages.

The Elevance Health Foundation and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) produce the annual index, which they say combines measures of personal health behavior, chronic disease outcomes, community infrastructure, and environmental factors “to provide a comprehensive picture of how well cities promote fitness and well-being.”

Arlington, Virginia, tops the index, followed by Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis; Seattle; and Denver. The Dallas suburb of Plano takes the top Texas spot at No. 12 nationally.

“The cities that consistently rank at the top aren’t succeeding because of one program or one investment,” Stella Volpe, past president of ACSM and chair of the Fitness Index Advisory Board, says in a press release. “They’ve built systems that support healthier living over time. They are the ones creating environments where physical activity can easily become a part of everyday routines.”

One thing helping Houston is its strong network of parks. In May, Houston landed at No. 10 in Texas and 69th in the U.S. in the annual ParkScore Index. That was down slightly from 2025.

Every year, land conservation nonprofit The Trust for Public Land rates park systems in the 100 biggest American cities on accessibility, equity, acreage, investment, and amenities.

Among other Texas cities appearing in the American Fitness index are:

No. 28 Austin, down from No. 21 last year.
No. 43 Dallas, up from 46th last year.
No. 69 Fort Worth, up from 80th last year.
No. 80 San Antonio, up from No. 94 last year.

“Where you live increasingly determines how healthy you are,” Volpe says. “The healthiest cities don’t just encourage exercise — they make movement part of daily life through infrastructure, transportation, and community design.”

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