Laura Bush
Laura Welch Bush (born Laura Lane Welch on November 4, 1946) is the wife of President George W. Bush and serves as First Lady of the United States.
Early life and career
Laura Lane Welch was born in Midland, Texas, the only child of Harold and Jenna Welch. She was a very popular student at school and attended the same high school as Tommy Franks.
At the age of seventeen, on November 6, 1963, while driving a Chevrolet sedan, Welch ignored or overlooked a stop sign and struck and killed Michael Douglas, aged seventeen, in a Corvair sedan. Douglas had been an acquaintance of Welch. She and her passenger, Judy Dykes (also aged seventeen) were treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. Welch was not charged.
In recent press interviews she has said that: "All I can say about that (is) it was a very, very, tragic accident I was involved in when I was 17 years old, almost 40-something years ago. It was a terrible accident. It was terrible for everyone involved,".."I know this as an adult, and even more as a parent, it was crushing... for the family involved and for me as well," she said. [1] (http://www.bartcop.com/pickles.htm)
Laura earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education in 1968 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. After graduating, she became a schoolteacher at Longfellow Elementary School in Dallas Independent School District until 1969. She then taught at John F. Kennedy Elementary School, a Houston Independent School District school in Houston, until 1972.
Bush earned a Master of Science degree in Library Science in 1973 from the University Texas in Austin. She is the second First Lady (after Hillary Clinton) to hold a post graduate degree. After that, she worked at the Kashmere Gardens Branch at the Houston Public Library, until 1974, when she moved back to Austin. She was a librarian at an Austin Independent School District school, Dawson Elementary School, until 1977.
She met George W. Bush in 1977 at the home of mutual friends and married him on November 5 of that year. In 1981, she gave birth to twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, now graduated from college.
First Lady
Laura became the first lady of Texas when her husband George was elected as the Governor of Texas and served as first lady of that state from 1995 to 2000. After the outcome of the 2000 Presidential Election was finally resolved in December 2000, George Bush resigned as Texas Governor to prepare for his inauguration as President of the United States in January 2001; Laura then became the First Lady of the United States.
As First Lady of the United States, she has championed education causes and women's health issues, and launched the first National Book Festival. She also worked for women's and children's causes while she was the First Lady of Texas, when she established the Adopt-a-Caseworker Program and the Rainbow Room program. Bush has taken a decidedly less prominent role in policy-making than her predecessors.
In November 2001, she became the first person other than a president to deliver the weekly presidential radio address. She used the opportunity to discuss the plight of women in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. In May 2002, she made a speech to the people of Afghanistan through Radio Liberty, a radio station in Prague, Czech Republic.
Her Secret Service codename is "Tempo".
External links
- Homepage of the First Lady (http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/)
| Preceded by: Hillary Clinton |
First Ladies of the United States | Suceeded by: Unknown |
es:Laura Welch Bush