Remarks by Mrs. Laura Bush at the Topping Out Ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center

Thank you very much, Gerald, and thank you, Adriana. I don’t know if you all understood when Mark said that Adriana is a student member of the SMU Board of Trustees. I’ve gotten to know her through the Board, and she is such a wonderful representative of SMU students.

It’s been really terrific to have this great relationship with SMU, and I want to thank you especially, Dr. Gerald Turner. SMU has been a part of my life for a very long time. Of course, I was a student here. I started my career in education as a student teacher at Bradfield Elementary when I was here at SMU.

George and I raised our girls in Dallas until they were in the seventh grade, which is when we moved to Austin, when he became governor. We always knew that we would come back home to Dallas when the Bush administration ended, so we’re thrilled to be back here. We’re very, very happy that the Bush Center is here on the SMU campus, and I want to thank Gerald and the whole SMU faculty for all the ways you’ve made us feel at home here. Thank you all very, very much.

The Bush Center will be a wonderful resource for SMU, for the people in the Metroplex, for students who go to school all around Dallas and Fort Worth and all of our suburbs, to come and visit with their classes and to delve into different studies that might be appropriate for their grade-level standards. Our archivists and our archive team are already working on how we can integrate the Bush Center with campuses that are close enough to bring their students here.

It will also be a place for people from around the world to come study what happened during the eight years that George was president, and to help us, through the Institute, as we look forward and move the policy issues that were most important to us forward. One of the things I’m really thrilled about is how this building both fits into the campus and represents the first decade of the new century, when George was president. That’s really because of our architect, Bob Stern, who’s here in the front row, and his very experienced and terrific RAMSA team. Thank you very, very much, Bob.

Of course, the building will be home to the archives. Joining us today is the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero. David, thank you so much for being with us today. All of the artifacts and papers belong to the United States government. They’re part of the National Archives and are managed and conserved by our archivist here, Alan Lowe, the director of the archives in Dallas at the Bush Center. There’s a whole team of archivists already working with the materials that are being stored at the Institute and that will be moved into this building when it is complete.

I’m also very thrilled about the design of the property and the park that will surround the building. Michael Van Valkenburgh is our landscape architect. We’ll have a native Texas prairie — actually a North Texas prairie — that will be a beautiful park for people everywhere: SMU students, visitors, and people from around the world, to walk through and reflect in.

The park itself will represent our home state, with trees from our tree farm at the ranch. You may be able to see that we’ve moved many of the large trees that were on this site and will move them back when we’re ready to landscape the property. There will be a grove of trees that you’ll drive into off Central Expressway, helping make the transition from the highway to the beautiful SMU campus. Michael Van Valkenburgh has developed truly wonderful plans.

The building itself will be LEED Platinum — the highest LEED rating there is. Part of the reason we’re able to reach LEED Platinum status is because of the water retention and water collection systems Michael Van Valkenburgh has designed, which we’ll use to irrigate the park and the surrounding property. Another major reason is Bob Stern’s work: the local materials used throughout the building. The interior paneling will be pecan — local pecan paneling — and the limestone around the base of the building comes from Garden City, Texas, just outside Midland. It’s Permian stone, which will also be used inside the building.

Using these local materials helps us achieve LEED Platinum. We’ll also have solar collection for energy and water, and I’m really thrilled about that — about all the ways this building will represent both George’s term in office, during the first decade of the new century, and the ways we’ll continue that work through the Institute.

As Mark mentioned, the entrance to the Institute is right behind me. It comes off Binkley Avenue and represents our connection to the campus. We’re thrilled about the work we’ll be able to do here.

George and I want to thank everyone here. We want to thank Bob Stern. We want to thank Manhattan Construction — thank you all for your terrific work building this facility. We want to thank the archivists who have joined us today, the SMU Board, and the faculty.

Thank you all. And now, I want to present George, the forty-third President of the United States to talk about what we’re going to do here.