Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson (December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States (1963–69) during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson.
Notably well educated for her time, she proved a capable manager and a shrewd investor. After marrying LBJ in 1934, when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign, and then ran his office while he was serving in the navy. Next, she bought a radio station and then a TV station, which would soon make them millionaires. As First Lady, she broke new ground by interacting directly with Congress, employing her own press secretary, and making a solo electioneering tour.
Johnson was a lifelong advocate for beautifying the nation's cities and highways ("Where flowers bloom, so does hope") and the Highway Beautification Act was informally known as Lady Bird's Bill. She was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US civilian honors.
David Gene Pearson (born December 22, 1934) is a former American stock car racer from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Pearson began his NASCAR career in 1960 and ended his first season by winning the 1960 NASCAR Rookie of the Year award. He won three championships (1966, 1968, and 1969) every year he ran the full schedule in NASCAR's Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series). NASCAR described his 1974 season as an indication of his "consistent greatness"; that season he finished third in the season points having competed in only 19 of 30 races.
At his finalist nomination for NASCAR Hall of Fame's inaugural 2010 class, NASCAR described Pearson as "... the model of NASCAR efficiency during his career. With little exaggeration, when Pearson showed up at a race track, he won."Pearson ended his career in 1986, and currently holds the second position on NASCAR's all-time win list with 105 victories; as well as achieving 113 pole positions. Pearson was successful in different venues of racing; he won three times onroad courses, 48 times on superspeedways, 54 time on Short tracks, and had 23 dirt track wins. Pearson finished with at least one Top 10 finish in each of his 27 seasons. Pearson was nicknamed the "Fox" (and later the "Silver Fox") for his calculated approach to racing. ESPN described him as being a "plain-spoken, humble man, and that added up to very little charisma."
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic development, Africa and public-private partnerships, and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.
He is a leading neoconservative. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate." Donald Rumsfeld in his interview with Fox News on February 8, 2011 said that Wolfowitz was the first to bring up Iraq after the 9/11 attacks during a meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David.
After serving two years, he resigned as president of the World Bank Group ending what a Reuters report called "a protracted battle over his stewardship, prompted by his involvement in a high-paying promotion for his companion."
Jordin Brianna Sparks (born December 22, 1989) is an American pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter and actress. At the age of 17, Sparks won the sixth season of American Idol, becoming the youngest winner in American Idol history and remains as the most recent female to win American Idol. Her self-titled debut album was released in 2007, which spawned two top-ten singles on the US Billboard Hot 100—"Tattoo" and "No Air" (with Chris Brown)—and was certified platinumby the RIAA. The album managed to sell more than two million copies worldwide. "No Air" is currently the third highest-selling single by any American Idol contestant, selling over three million digital copies in the US. The song earned Sparks her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Lauralee Kristen Bell (born December 22, 1968) is an American soap opera actress. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended The Latin School of Chicago.
The daughter of soap opera creators William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, and sister to Bill Bell, Jr. and Bradley Bell as well as sister-in-law to Maria Arena Bell, Lauralee was offered a bit role as a model, Christine "Cricket" Blair, on her parents' show The Young and the Restless in 1983 and that followed into a contract role in 1986.
Lady Bird Taylor expressed an interest in pursuing a career in writing or journalism; ten weeks after graduating, she met Lyndon Baines Johnson on 31 August, 1934. They began a whirlwind courtship that resulted in their marriage three months later. One more interesting fact, she lived longer than any other First Lady except Bess Truman.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, Mrs. Johnson was an environmentalist, and she was an active worker on innumerable projects. In Washington, she enlisted the aid of friends to plant thousands of tulips and daffodils which still delight visitors to our nation's Capital. The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was the result of Mrs. Johnson's national campaign for beautification. In 1999, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt presented Mrs. Johnson with the Native Plant Conservation Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award. At that time he said, "Mrs. Johnson has been a 'shadow’ Secretary of the Interior' for much of her life."
ReplyDeleteMrs. Johnson was honorary chairman of the LBJ Memorial Grove on the Potomac in Washington, D. C. She also chaired the Town Lake Beautification Project, a community effort to create a hike and bike trail and to plant flowering trees along the Colorado River in Austin, Texas. She became a member of the National Park Service's Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments in 1969 and served on the council for many years. In 1969 Mrs. Johnson founded the Texas Highway Beautification Awards, and for the next twenty years, she hosted the annual awards ceremonies and presented her personal checks to the winners. She was a trustee of the American Conservation Association.