First Lady Mrs. Laura Bush Honored for Her Preservation Leadership

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and Home & Garden TV (HGTV) honored First Lady Mrs. Laura Bush and four other individuals and organizations with the prestigious Restore America hero award. The award honors public officials, private citizens and corporations whose energy, vision and leadership have had a significant impact on the preservation of our historic and cultural legacy—the buildings, collections, documents and works of art that tell America’s story. Mrs. Bush was recognized for her long-standing leadership in preservation. In particular, for her role as Honorary Chairman of the Save America’s Treasures program and her initiation of a new preservation awareness effort, Preserve America, for which she also serves as Honorary Chairman.

In her remarks Mrs. Bush paid tribute to Save America’s Treasures, which under her leadership continues the work of generations of U.S. citizens and supports the efforts of hundreds of others who have committed their talents and financial resources to saving our nation’s legacy of cultural and historical treasures, which otherwise would be lost to time and decay.

She said, “With support from the federal government—and through the generosity of private citizens—Save America's Treasures has awarded more than $100 million to projects in all 50 states. These grants have protected the icons of America's past—from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, to the first airplane the Wright Brothers kept aloft in Ohio.”

First Lady Mrs. Laura Bush remarks on the vital role of preservation to our nation. Her leadership was recently recognized with the prestigious Restore America hero award.
Photo by Juan Carlos Briceno courtesy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and HGTV

Adair Margo, Chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, remarked, “It is a great privilege for the President’s Committee to be able to work with Mrs. Bush in harnessing the expertise of our federal partners in the Save America’s Treasures program to ensure that the legacy of our country’s most significant cultural and historical resources is passed on to the next generation.”

President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Richard Moe, said of the award to Mrs. Bush, “When the Restore America campaign was launched in 2003, it was intended to open people’s eyes to the rich diversity of our nation’s heritage, to emphasize the importance of keeping that heritage intact and alive, and to encourage individuals and corporations to get involved in preservation in their own communities. Those phrases constitute a perfect description of the work of our first honoree. Laura Bush has been a true champion of preservation.”

Over the last four years the National Trust/HGTV Restore America program has provided $4 million to fund 48 restoration projects around the country. Among these awards were many made to match Save America’s Treasures federal project funds. The National Trust’s and HGTV’s efforts reflect on the strength of Save America’s Treasures, which builds on a long tradition of public-private partnerships and federal leadership, engaging both its federal partners---National Park Service, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities—and its private partner, Save America’s Treasures at the National Trust, in carrying out this holistic preservation approach. In addition to these funds, HGTV has produced programming segments on Restore America projects and a series of PSAs to be shown on TV and on their Web site.

In addition to Mrs. Laura Bush, Restore America hero honorees also included: the Honorable Steny Hoyer, Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives; United Technologies Corporation of Hartford, CT ; Bob R. Simpson, CEO of XTO Energy in Fort Worth, TX; and Bill Watanabe, Executive Director of the Little Tokyo Service Center in Los Angeles, CA. Rep. Hoyer’s leadership helped preserve symbols of a rural way of life, the tobacco barns of Southern Maryland; United Technologies was recognized for its development of environmentally-friendly and sustainable design that can be incorporated into historic structures; Bob R. Simpson and his company restored several historic buildings in Fort Worth to house the company; and Bill Watanbe and his organization have led efforts to preserve the sense of place and the structures that help define the Little Tokyo neighborhood in Los Angeles.

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Mrs. Laura Bush's Remarks at the Restore America Gala, 12 June 2007