Remarks by the First Lady at the National Park Foundation Leadership Summit on Partnership and Philanthropy Inaugural Founders Award Dinner

Business Wire, Oct 16, 2007

AUSTIN, Texas -- Four Seasons Hotel

Austin, Texas

October 15, 2007

7:42 P.M. CDT

MRS. BUSH: Thank you, David, for that very kind introduction, and thank you for the extraordinary service you and your family have given to our national parks.

I want to say a special welcome to Luci Baines Johnson and members of the Johnson family that are here with us tonight. Governor Linda Lingle from Hawaii is here as well. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior; Mayor Will Wynn of Austin is with us; Vin Cipolla, the President and CEO of the National Park Foundation; Regan Gammon, the Vice Chair of the National Park Foundation -- and all the National Park Foundation board members who have joined us.

David talked about his mother and his uncle that he missed. We also miss Lady Bird. We wish she were with us tonight. I think she did know about this symposium, and we wish really so much that we could hear her voice again.

Thank you to everyone for your welcome home to Texas. Thank you to the National Park Foundation for presenting the first Founders Award to a legendary champion of our parks: Lady Bird Johnson.

I've always admired Lady Bird Johnson -- especially for her dedication to our natural environment. As a lonely little girl in Karnack, Lady Bird found her solace and companionship in the outdoors. "I grew up listening to the wind in the pine trees of the East Texas woods," she once said. Later, as a young woman, Lady Bird took a scouting trip to Austin on a chartered flight. She made the decision to go to school here when she looked out of her plane window, and saw a magnificent field of bluebonnets in full bloom. "It was as though the gates of the world flung open for me," she said. "I felt in love with life itself."

Mrs. Johnson carried that early love of nature and life with her all the way to the White House -- where it became a gift she shared with our entire nation. Just as a well-tended yard reflects the pride of a homeowner, Lady Bird believed that a well-cared-for landscape reflects the pride and self-respect of a nation. As her husband set about building a Great Society, Lady Bird Johnson knew America needed beautiful cities and countryside to match.

Mrs. Johnson reshaped the role of the First Lady -- and of women, for that matter -- as she pursued her dream of "beautification." She met with Cabinet officials -- including Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall -- to discuss how our government could preserve, and I quote, "the wilderness, the national parks, the shrines, the jewels of America."

She started with her own backyard, launching a major beautification campaign in Washington, D.C. -- home to many of our most treasured national parks and monuments. Through her Committee for a More Beautiful Capital, Lady Bird brought together representatives from the National Park Service and local government, architect Nathaniel Owings, and philanthropists like Laurance Rockefeller to reverse urban decay -- and, Lady Bird hoped, to restore Washington's community pride. The Committee's gatherings at the White House were so lively, President Johnson once complained that their meeting woke him from an afternoon nap. (Laughter.)

Committee member Mary Lasker once made this observation: "Flowers in a city are like lipstick on a woman. You have to have some color." (Laughter.) Every spring when Washingtonians delight in the blossoms, they have Lady Bird's Committee to thank. Throughout the city -- including its national parks -- they planted 2 million daffodil bulbs. Japan sent 4,000 more cherry trees. Mrs. Lasker contributed 9,000 azalea bushes. In 1965, the town of Norfolk sent 500 more -- because, as Lady Bird wrote in her diary, "Luci is their azalea queen this year." (Laughter.)

The Committee cleaned up national monuments and landscaped the National Mall. But Mrs. Johnson firmly believed that everyone should contribute to and benefit from our country's natural beauty.

When Laurance Rockefeller gave the Committee its largest single gift, much of the $100,000 went to Washington's low-income Watts Branch neighborhood. Mrs. Johnson toured housing projects, and her Committee funded Project Pride, which cleared out and painted old homes in run-down D.C. neighborhoods.

At the height of the Civil Rights Era, the First Lady received a letter from an African-American boy named John Hatcher. He wrote, "I'd love for my yard to look more beautiful. If you'd please send me azaleas, I'll plant them. Then you wouldn't have to come all the way out to 50th Street to plant them for me." (Laughter.) Mrs. Johnson wrote John back, encouraging him to keep his neighborhood and school clean, and to plant more flowers. And soon after, an azalea bush was delivered to John's home.

Of course, Lady Bird's Washington days began long before she moved into the White House. During her husband's time in Congress, she drove back and forth between D.C. and Texas. From her travels, Lady Bird knew that many roadsides were an unsightly mess of junkyards and billboards. So in 1965, she expanded her beautification efforts beyond Washington, pushing for scenic highways across America.