The 41st President of the United States of America George Herbert Walker Bush passed away Friday, November 30, at the age of 94 some seven months after his wife Barbara.
Former State Representative and current member of the Evangeline Parish Board of Election Supervisors Danny Lemoine said of President Bush, “He was a very good leader, and he always had consideration for everybody not just the Republicans or the Democrats.”
“I think the whole world is sad because of his passing,” continued Lemoine. “As an election supervisor, we admire him for all the things he has done not just as president. He was also a pilot in the war and a congressman.”
Fellow board member Jimmy LaFleur commented, “I think he was a great president. Not only that, but he was 19-years-old and the youngest pilot in the history of the Navy. He was a fighter pilot and got shot down in the Pacific.”
LaFleur added, “He lived a long life, and he loved the country. He did what he thought was best for the country.”
In the open presidential election of 1988 to replace President Ronald Reagan, he ran as Reagan’s vice president as the Republican Party’s nominee against Democratic candidate and former two-time Governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis.
Dukakis and running mate Texas Senator Lloyd Bentson carried 10 states along with the District of Columbia and won 41,809,476 popular votes. However, President Bush and running mate Dan Quayle swept the remaining 40 states and was elected with 426 electoral votes including the 10 from Louisiana.
In an article appearing in the Thursday, November, 10, 1988, issue of The Ville Platte Gazette, Editor Paul Kedinger wrote about the election, “Although the national television networks had Louisiana in President-elect George Bush’s column shortly after the polls closed at 8:00 p.m., it was approximately an hour and a half later when complete, but unofficial, results showed Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis had carried Evangeline Parish.”
“Parish voters backed the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket by a 50-48 percentage margin in Tuesday’s balloting. The margin was 256 votes, with voters giving 7,693 votes to Dukakis and 7,437 to the future 41st president of the United States.”
During his term from 1989-1993, he presided over the end of the Cold War and The Gulf War. While he was successful in his presidency with foreign affairs, it was domestic issue such as the economy that allowed him to lose his bid for reelection to Democratic challenger and Governor of Arkansas William Jefferson Clinton.
Before ascending to the position of vice president in 1980, President Bush, a Massachusetts native, played for Yale baseball as a first baseman in the College World Series, served as a fighter pilot during World War II. In latter years, he served in the United States House of Representatives from Texas, Republican Party chairman, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and United States ambassador to China and the United Nations. He was the first vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836 and the second son of a former president to be elected.
President Bush’s son George Walker Bush followed as the 43rd president in 2001 after President Clinton’s two terms in the oval office and announced his father’s passing.
“Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died,” the latter President Bush said in a statement released Friday night. “George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens.”
Current President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania released a statement which read in part, “Through his essential authenticity, disarming wit, and unwavering commitment to faith, family, and country, President Bush inspired generations of his fellow Americans to public service—to be, in his words, ‘a thousand points of light’ illuminating the greatness, hope, and opportunity of America to the world.”
Image
TONY MARKS Associate Editor