Flowers Alongside National Highways

   The Bluebonnets are blooming as Spring time has brought the state flower of Texas out in force. The medium and shoulders of the nation's highways abound in the various colors of the rainbow as wild flowers explode...and it was all the vision of one woman.
   Lady Bird Johnson was the First Lady under the administration of her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson in the mid 1960's.
   

   Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas December 22, 1912 to an affluent family. A nurse on hand for the delivery is credited with giving her the nickname she would carry her entire life when she said, "she is as pretty as a Lady Bird."  Bird, as her friends would call her, married LBJ in 1934 and financed his congressional campaign with part of her inheritance. During World War II while Lyndon was away in the Navy, Lady Bird bought KTBC Radio in Austin, Texas to give listeners 'the Johnson prospective' on happenings in Washington, DC. From the profits of the station she also bought a TV station in Austin. The two broadcast outlets made millionaires of the Johnson's but Bird never gave up her love of flowers.

   LBJ became the Senate Majority Leader in the late 1950's and suffered a heart attack, but Lady Bird ran his office while he was recuperating and also kept his mail up to date. Johnson would become the Vice-President under the Kennedy Administration and assumed the Oval Office when JFK was assassinated November 22, 1963. As First Lady, Bird's primary goal was to bring beauty to America's highways. Texas led the way with Bluebonnets and Indian Paint Brushes flourishing the state's roadways. Bird had one comment she liked to use at public speaking outings, "where flowers bloom, so does hope."