Speaker 1: Hello, I'm bill Moyers.

And I worked in the white house for president Johnson.

When his first lady, lady, bird Johnson set out to beautify our nation's highways.

This was the 1960s.

When he college, he was hardly a familiar word, much less concept, but Mrs. Johnson was very conscious of what natural beauty meant to the landscape and the soul she'd been born in deep east, Texas as Claudia, Alta Taylor, her nanny lovingly called her lady bird and it stuck after her mother died.

When the little girl was five lady bird found nurture in east, Texas daffodils and Cypress trees.

She cared the imprint of that experience into her long life with Lyndon Johnson and into her own role on the national scene on their mini trips between Washington, DC and Texas, she saw the roadside eyesores and witnessed the interstate highway spreading across the countryside.

When LBJ became the 36th president of the United States, she became one of our first champions of the environment.

This documentary focuses on the successful programs for protecting and improving scenic beauty attributable to Ladybird naturally Speaker 2: Major funding for lady bird naturally was provided by the Lawrence Rockefeller fund.

Additional funding was provided by the Zachary foundation in tribute to lady bird Johnson, for her dedication, to the environment and the beautification of America, a lasting legacy to all Speaker 1: She awakened the nation and the consciousness of the nation to its diversity and to its beauty.

And she called people to action to do something about that.

And that call still rings with us today.

Speaker 2: Ladybird Johnson's impact on the national environmental movement.

The local environmental movements at every level is that she simply put it on the political agenda of mayors of county, commissioners of presidents.

And today nobody could run for public office that does not have to answer how they stand on the environment.

Speaker 1: One of the funniest things I ever heard was it, a lady told me she was so glad I started this campaign.

And she said, you take me out of the closet.

And I said, please explain.

And she said, I've always cared about wild flowers and beauty and scenery and talked about it and Donald and love it.

Mostly just enjoyed it.

And I knew that people were laughing at me, but you saw took me out of the clouds.

It is no longer just the property of that few old ladies over teacups and arranging some roses.

It's a day to day face up to crowding and dirt and air pollution and water pollution.

But, oh gosh, it is in the heart of so many people.

It's all a matter of caring about your country, your home.

The great deal of it is about clean up paint up, fix up Speaker 2: The spring time dresses feels with, with paintbrush and with waffles.

Each roadside touched with gray, the chairs And shades of rain, boom, spread across the miles from when you're rolling on the high way through the dream as you pass, Speaker 1: When she first went into the white house, she said, I feel as if I'm on the stage for a row that I have not rehearsed and I'm not prepared for, but she had something no other first lady had had.

And that is 27 years of experience on the political scene.

And so therefore she was able to call on that experience to know how to get things done.

Indeed, during those 27 years with Lyndon, Mrs. Johnson played a major role in his congressional Senate and then vice presidential campaigns.

And she proved herself as an astute business woman running the day-to-day operations of their Austin, Texas radio and TV stations.

Then under the most horrific circumstances with the Kennedy assassination, the Johnsons were catapulted into the white house Speaker 2: And you know, it's remarkable to me at texts and the six generations.

The thing that these two people faced with a terrible way to come on stage, which is an assassination, a dark curtain that you have to pull back and make people hang on to hope that they were able to handle that with the grace they did Speaker 1: To help manage the now frenetic demands owner, Mrs. Johnson hired veteran journalist.

Liz carpenter has her assistant and initial for carpenter.

And Mrs. Johnson was facing inevitable comparisons between an Eastern establishment wide house.

And one with a Texas style, The comparisons were made all the time and people would sort of look down their noses as these uncivilized excellence, you know, coming to the white house.

And I can remember reading, you know, people joking about, well, they probably, all they know how to do is have barbecue.

It's more of a, kind of a regional prejudice.

And then there was the press.

They thought he was going to be dull after Jackie and Jack and all the glamor of their white house while they find it found it was completely different.

And it was even more exciting and more things to do.

And the horizon was broadened by the Johnsons for the coverage of the white house, to what it had been previously.

Now, as first lady, Mrs. Johnson sees the opportunity to champion scenic beauty, which she said had the capacity to make her heart seat.

Speaker 2: No first lady is ever going to be able to do nothing.

They've got to do something and it's better if they believe in it, if it comes truly and authentically from their core self, her own first heart's desire was to say that in her time, when she would use that desk in her bedroom as a bully pulpit to preach the doctrine of beautification, that device was heard.

And while she's by nature, a shower, retiring woman, she learned that you have to be a spokesman and a leader too.

And she was all of that.

Speaker 1: She had always been interested in beautification and flowers, and she loved nature, Speaker 2: Fell in love with the looks of things, the beauty, the way it lifts your spirits Speaker 1: Embedded in her roots or heart.

Her soul since childhood was a passionate relationship with nature Because I grew up out in the country and Harrison county DVDs, Texas, and the deep does go with the phrase.

At least of people who live there would say nature was my daily companion.

It was my life.

My mother died when I was five, my very dear gentle wonderful NFV came to live with me to raise me so to speak.

She loved poetry and music and she to love nature.

And I have to give her part of the credit for filling my life with our response to nature.

That's very spirit feeding.

Well it's spring time.

I just love because I love to walk along the Springs.

Every one of them was a joy for me to discover what was growing there.

And when it started, it was my kingdom, my place, my love.

And I just assumed that all the rest of the world felt like I did.

And when she'd happen upon the first daffodil of spring, she'd celebrate.

Speaker 2: Oh, you're so beautiful here.

The most beautiful in the most beautiful flower I've ever seen.

Speaker 1: The first one, I'm the biggest one.

I'd say this is the French.

She loved her east, Texas home called the brick house.

Canopied with magnificent trees, Gorgeous trees.

Some of them Magnolias, the Grandiflora that towers sky wouldn't has a great big creamy Lusher's on it.

A tree that it just almost spelled old SAS And nearby Caddo lake where he wild away.

The time Catalina is a regional swamps, I guess you would call it with huge Cypress trees with the knees sticking up out of the water and Spanish moles hanging down.

And if you've seen Cypress trees and the very early spring, there's nothing that comes out that is so freshly green.

So just, it just says life returning.

I was twice as alive in spring time.

And so entering a new stage of life has the nation's first lady, Mrs. Johnson thought, What am I at home with?

And what gives me pleasure and strength.

And it was clear to me that it was a world around me.

He saw a need for this country to be beautified.

She saw the junkyard.

She saw the billboards.

She saw the lack of flowers on the road size.

People were beginning to be aware that our country was not infinite in some of its resources and that something needed to be done to protect them in these really special places.

Although the beauty of our land was a natural cause for Mrs. Johnson to promote environmentalism had not reached his popular peak.

We didn't have in the common vocabulary as we do today, terms like ecology.

It was hardly known that, But the environment as a cause was emerging first in 1962 with Rachel Carson's book, silent spring, which uncovered the consequences of pesticides.

Then Stewart Udall, secretary of the interior published his book, the quiet crisis, warning Americans of our lands, vanishing beauty, shrinking open spaces and pollution.

The first lady and YouDo were to discover a powerful pro-environment bond between them.

The land was in his blood and his heart.

And he could turn on people pretty well in between us.

We managed to turn on some potent and patriotic people Then in his great society speech at the university of Michigan, Lyndon Johnson added presidential weight to his wife's calls.

By saying today, we must act to prevent an ugly America for once the battle is lost.

Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured.

And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither Being a country boy, as he called himself from the beautiful hill country of Texas, he loved the land and it was reflected in his speeches time and time again, in respect to the environment, Johnson's invited environmental enthusiasts to form the committee for a more beautiful national Capitol with the goal of beautifying Washington, DC, as a role model for the rest of the nation.

Washington was a beautiful city because it had white marble buildings.

It had broad streets, it had trees and greenery, but there were no flowers.

Friends who joined the committee and became major donors of both time and money to various capital projects where Mary Lasker, Brooke Astor, Katherine Graham, and launch Rockefeller.

Speaker 2: You see, she was trying to get evidence of beautification.

So all through the city, planning and parks were enhanced and bad areas were upgraded and people would sponsor Speaker 1: Well among the wonderful things.

Your friend donated we're 10,000 to Xavier's, which were planted in along Pennsylvania avenue and a million daffodil balls, which were planted on the Virginia side of the Potomac river, The million daffodil bulbs, and the 10,000 is eight, were from the large S of Mary Lasker who wished to see masses of flowers planted for the masses past Good phrase is earnest beliefs can sway a populace, a nation without expression of hers, masses of flowers, where the masses pass.

That's a little nugget.

The philosophy that I loved and adapted and used as much as I could.

The challenge was to find people to help us because our staff resources simply were not adequate to cope with a project of that scope.

Let's carpenter, always full of good ideas, suggested that we bring people from the local garden clubs to do the job.

And we did precisely that and succeeded in planting all 1 million daffodil months.

We had many planting such as this one all over what is not Ladybird Johnson park, Frenchman Parallon fonts plan for Washington, DC created numerous triangles and circles, which became an early focus of the beautification committee And 26 triangles and squares to be exact.

They needed tending care, finding something that was vigorous hard in native, if possible, but going to do well in that climate Third and independence avenue in Washington, DC with the capital behind us, this triangle was a rather disheveled piece of ground.

It was full of weeds, wild onions in particular, and there was a prime candidate for launching the beautification program From the beginning, Mrs. Johnson insisted that the committee's focus include the inner city.

Hers was to be a beautification program for all of Washington DC.

She invited Walter Washington head of the national Capitol housing district to join the committee and give guidance about the inner city sign.

Ms. Johnson said to me, all of these people know the city in their way.

They know how to get from hotel to the white house, but they don't know the things that you know.

So I, I, I guess from that point on, I, I just became a resource.

It was great fun to ride around with Walter.

And he would stop where they were putting out some trees and a bunch of people would gather, they all knew him.

They didn't know me, but we introduced each other.

And it was so good to see that all those people carrying With Walton Washington's guidance, the committee selected schools badly in need of sprucing up The science teachers, the art teachers in the schools were likely to be your allies.

You elected to get that cooperation.

And they would either give it as an assignment.

I tell the children, this would be great.

And they maintained the grounds.

The janitors didn't have to do it.

Kids did it.

Instead of running out with play during the noon hour, they would take 15 or 20 minutes to either plant or look after their plants.

They'd give them water and they don't pay it.

The greatest statement she made was the one where she would say that it is important for a child to have a seed and to plant the seed and to nourish the seed, water the seed, and watch it grow until it becomes a full fledged plant with all of its beauty.

And once you've done that, you have the basis of being what a great citizen Speaker 2: Ladybird often drove around in cognitive and checked on what she was doing.

She was so involved in Speaker 1: And she frequently called me and asked me to go with her, to check up on things and see how they're coming along.

Part of her style and her commitment to our program.

Speaker 2: She would go in a, not a long limousine, but in a, just an undistinguished car and see how things were going.

Had they watered the trees that we planted.

Speaker 1: There aren't many places in the city of Washington that were not enhanced by her work.

The first ladies committee planted cherry trees on Haynes point and established a Q-tip library near the Jefferson Memorial.

One of the more successful of our projects, I'm happy to say is a tool of library, which exists to this day and attracts countless visitors.

In the spring.

We plant two lips in the summer.

We plant annuals and in the fall we plant moms Ever media wise, thanks to her college journalism degree, Mrs. Johnson and her committee plan tourist to see the results of their work, their flower festoon buses, attracted precedent, Speaker 2: And then taking the press along and trying to teach them how to spell it, say young power camper.

And they all became allies.

Speaker 1: When people come to Washington today and see how beautiful it is, they always mentioned her name in connection with the beauty of Washington, because she was the one who started it.

And also she gave the impetus for the national park service, which does the work today.

Speaker 2: I think it was well worth doing.

I think Washington in the spring is much more beautiful because of what lady bird and, Speaker 1: And this was the role model effect to all other cities and people as individuals.

So she built a real team that just kept mushrooming outside of Washington and went all the way across the country.

Phone calls and letters supporting Mrs. Johnson's programs flooded the white house.

And the first lady increased her staff to handle the volume in 1965, the president called for a white house conference on natural beauty and in a bipartisan spirit LBJ appointed Republican conservationist, Lawrence Rockefeller as coordinator, the president reacted quickly to the conferences report sending four new highway bills to Congress.

So Speaker 2: Well they took what was a minor factor of awareness, not on the public agenda, not up there with education, health care, you name it, you see, and put it on the agenda as co equal and then fulfilled it with all that legislation.

Speaker 1: And so the beautification program was well on its way, except for one problem.

The very word I had a problem that we never overcame.

And to this day, we still talk about it.

The identity of the program, the use of the word beautification, Can I end up a prissy word, but we never could come up with one To this day.

We keep challenging ourselves to find one.

As you may know, my concern has been expressed in an effort called beautification.

I think you also know what lies beneath that.

Rather inadequate word, but beautification to my mind is far more than a matter of cosmetics.

To me, it describes the whole effort to bring the natural world and the man-made world into harmony to bring oughta usefulness delight to our whole environment.

But it also gave the critics an avenue of attack because they said, this is about mere cosmetic stuff.

This is fluffy.

This is not substantive.

This is just about superficial, But even the president had qualms about the word beautification, but Walter Washington, Ms. Johnson has a way of producing they program of beautification.

That's unlike anything you could see, it does not talk about a flower being beautiful, like a rose or geranium.

It talks about what is this in your life that you can take a seed and make into something that's real.

I said, he said, what did she say that to him?

I said, yeah, she, she says it in the most beautiful way.

And if you're not careful, you, you start saying it yourself Speaker 2: And he would use Umer and kid her a lot.

He'd say I can't ever take a nap in the afternoon because lady bird and Lawrence Rockefeller and the yellow oval room planning daffodils.

Well, that was LBJ is, but he liked it.

He applauded it.

And he, I think it's been quoted on saying that after many programs die, this one will live on.

So the booty was a poetic starting point Speaker 1: For a very gutsy real into woven program.

Many, many facets along with her capital city program.

The first lady was adamant that the nation's interstate system, not Mara, the natural beauty of our country, This is the biggest thing our nation may be doing is bigger than the parameds.

VGO why can't we just put aside some, one of the portion of it.

So that besides being functional and reasonably safe, it can also offer amenities, pleasure association with beauty, a sense of pride in your land.

So I sort of sold to be a part, just a little part of pushing that She had the vision that the roadways of America should be planted with the native plants and wild flowers of each region to reflect the inherent beauty of that region.

So as people went from one place to another, they would, they would have a connection with that place.

The threat was that, you know, the interstate highways became the, the center of commercial development in the form of billboards, franchise, places of all kinds, Washington told the president about a trip he'd taken with Mrs. Johnson and how upset she'd become at all the billboards.

I think she would like to do some with the highways to beautify them, take some of those signs down, take some of those ugly looking commercials off there.

As soon as she, she she's into that, he said, I'll never do be able to get anything like that done.

That's in the commercial thing.

He, and next thing you know, he was into highway beautification.

Speaker 2: We must make a massive effort to save the countryside.

He wanted what he called lady bird spill, but it was the highway beautification belt past Speaker 1: The highway.

Beautification legislation proved to be a tough sell even for a master politician because the highway lobby and the billboard lobby were inextricably linked, Speaker 2: The new and substantial effort must be made to landscape highways.

Speaker 1: Part of the difficulty was, again, the idea that this was the first lady's project, but also it was going up against a very powerful economic interests.

That was so entrenched that all of a sudden it was like this David and Goliath sort of situation of, you know, how dare you, you know, take us on.

But in general there was this tendency to kind of make fun of Mrs. Johnson's efforts on behalf of, of getting rid of billboards and junk yards.

And it would manifest itself sometimes in, in kind of cruel cartoons or cruel comments and editorials I'm thinking she found it amusing because people were noticing what she was doing.

And if everybody had ignored what she did, why she wouldn't have gotten, Speaker 2: You know, there's a pillar, somebody center, if you, if you want no criticism do nothing.

Well, that's not her philosophy.

Speaker 1: Congressman who didn't like the bill we're balking.

So the president in his inimitable direct hands-on style On a Sunday, he called in all of his, his cabinet and all of his aids and held a meeting and said, now we need this highway beautification law to be passed.

And we're going to start right now, right now on a Sunday.

And they started right there.

It was going to be his gift to later.

Speaker 2: And my phone rang one morning, three signals.

That was the president of the United States.

And he said, Liz, I want you to put on your tightest girdle and your best perfume, go up there to the hill and see those two west Texans, you know, so well, George Mehan and Omar Burleson and tell them, I want this bill passed.

So I did just what he told me.

Well, I had barely gotten back to the white house when the game that three buzzers, the president wanted to hear it.

He said, well, what do you think?

And I said, I think we'll get George Megan's vote.

I think we'll lose Omar Burleson.

And he said, you go to that phone and you call Omar Burleson and you tell him air force basis can be given and they can be taken away.

So I went to the phone and of course the Abilene air force base is important to the district.

Well, Omar Burleson just roared laughing.

And he said, well, that's the same thing.

He told me when he called me out of the Brownwood football game to vote for the Russian wheat mill Speaker 1: Historians agree.

The highway beautification legislation was a watered down, even a weak bill.

However, in face of the opposition, it was the only bill that could have passed at that time.

And it's the first legislation in history to regulate the billboard industry.

There were letters from people who were saying to Mrs. Johnson, right on I hate billboards.

And one of my favorite all time letters was from a lady who clearly was a lady of means who wrote and said how one of the great joys of her life.

And she was in her eighties was going out at night with her chauffeur and a chain saw and cutting down billboards.

And I thought, oh, this is great.

So it was the highway beautification program Success.

In my mind, the highway beautification program indeed was a great success for one thing.

It eliminated thousands and thousands of billboards all across the federal highway system, regretfully the belt boards have reemerged Speaker 2: And continue to reemerge much star distress, but her influence on billboards and utilities and junkyards and just playing enhancement was a numbness and reaching a vast number of people much more than most people would think.

Just the highway bill, how important it was.

Speaker 1: Well, let's just be laughed off the scene.

It may, but not if we like home as much as I hope we will and do not.

If we are as proud of this country, as I think we are More than three decades later, lady bird's bill endured.

Speaker 2: One of the things that's appealing about this area is, is the natural beauty.

And we have a lot of wallflowers in season and people are constantly coming in and remarking about how pretty the countryside is through here.

One of the things that you notice as you drive from Seguin to Gonzalez, which is about 40 miles, is there are no billboards.

And one of the reasons for this, or the reason for this is the legislation that was in enacted.

It's called the lady bird Johnson law for bids, billboard signs on this highway.

It was an idea whose time was right.

And she was the right person to do it.

And we proved that beautification is contagious.

Just this ugly furcation, this contagious We traveled the country planning trees because it was always a page one picture.

And it was something that spread the Johnny Appleseed idea.

And so after about the 200 planting, I said to lady bird, look, I think I've got the Dutch Elm disease.

I, my lambs have begun to rock.

My roots have begun to disintegrate and she just smiled and said, oh, let us we'll spray you and prune you and your bloom again Speaker 1: To highlight her beautification efforts.

Mrs. Johnson called the first trip outside the capital city, landscapes and landmarks.

She stopped in Dumfries, Virginia to dedicate a roadside park.

Hello, my name is Ellie Francis, and this is my son Clayton Jack Francis.

We come from near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I drive stretch of roadway quite often and regularly stop at this restaurant.

Stop.

I'm glad to know that it was dedicated by lady bird Johnson.

It is quite beautiful whenever I come through.

Thanks lady bird.

I appreciate it.

In 1966, Mrs. Johnson made one of her most celebrated excursions to big Ben national park in west Texas.

One of our more remote parts Speaker 2: One of my pleasures was organizing the press to go along on the big Ben trap.

I would have press conferences and I tell them it was not going to be soft and easy.

They weren't going to be rattlesnakes.

There were going to be Panthers.

They are there.

Fortunately, we didn't see any, but the news women got into the mood, turned out that we had 85 rubber rafts filled with reporters with Lawrence Rockefeller and lady bird.

And I think the first raft is Stewart Udall and away.

We went down the rear grand.

Speaker 1: I pulled the same woman at Washington reporter out of the drink three times.

And after I read what she had written about the trip, I wished I'd left it in the water For the press who needed to file their stories from this remote location is carpenters.

Touch of humor was a furrow labeled pony express.

And as a campfire surprise, she convinced cactus Pryor to pose as buckshot beam, nephew of judge Roy Bean, the infamous hanging judge of Lang tree, Texas.

Okay, I'm coming up the trail and I've got a long beard and I got a pack on my back and I'm leading a donkey and I've got a, got a rifle under this arm.

And it's just about dark.

I turned a corner in the path and there's a gun in my stomach.

And there was a secret service.

She said, where do you think you're going?

I says, I'm going to the bathroom real soon.

Unless you get that gun out to my stuff.

I said, go get Liz.

She got, her came, rescued me.

It was a wild, wild trip, but everybody was well, first of all, surprised to learn that Texas had that kind of beauty mountain beauty canyon water that you could ride for miles and miles on Speaker 2: The Sunday after we had been there, the visitation to the big Ben park doubled, and I think it's proposed, we were showing it off and you know, our national parks, one of the great trashes of this country.

And it's where you do see nature as in no other place, because they're protected from, you know, commercialization Speaker 1: Three years later, another trip to Texas was planned this time with a bus load of foreign journalists.

But just days before the trip, Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. Was assassinated riding erupted across the nation.

Speaker 2: There were some question as to whether we should go or not, but it was decided.

And I think rightfully so that here were 50 reporters who had come from Europe and the far east.

And to just say, submit the whole story of what was happening in this country to the negative was not doing any good.

And so we came on on that trip Speaker 1: To bring forth from this tragedy.

Some good action on our problems would be the greatest tribute we could pay.

Dr. King, Cynthia Wilson, part of the advanced team for this trip located at great blue bonnet site for a photo op stop.

As it turned out, they didn't find my blue bonnets.

They found some other field of bluebonnets, which turned out to be full of rattles Rattlesnakes.

Weren't the only problem with that trip.

It took place just a month after Lyndon Johnson had announced he'd not seek another term as president Speaker 2: And I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president, Speaker 1: We were all totally wiped out.

Cause we were all totally surprised.

I mean, none of us had any idea that he was not going to run That disappointment paled in the face of the terrible riding in the city Here in Washington, we had a real crisis more so with the assassination of Robert Kennedy, which compounded the crisis.

Speaker 2: Once again, the heart of America is heavy.

Speaker 1: 1968 was a year right out of hell.

It was a, there was so many hideous, tragic things that happen that stain our country.

One of the worst times in America's history, Amazingly many of the Washington DC areas, beautified by ladybirds efforts were largely unscathed during this ugly period.

It leaves you with a theory which you can't prove it or disprove it.

I like to think in my own mind that that had something to do with the maintenance and the longevity of some of the areas that were treated and planted and beautified, okay.

With the tragic assassinations was foment over the war in Vietnam, everywhere she spoke, Mrs. Johnson encountered protestors.

She realized that the issues that people were upset about were indeed very serious issues.

And the amazing thing to me was that she did not back down and just hide out at Tears for our countries.

Troubles are deep.

She continued to talk about the issues and go places and, and, you know, make speeches and talk about the environment.

Speaker 2: So I think to keep your sides on the higher course took some nerve, but she had it.

And we did it.

We made 47 trips across this country in five years, Speaker 1: Mrs. Johnson was involved in saving Redwood forests and seashores.

And she was instrumental in stopping dams in the grand canyon.

She called attention to environmental issues, not through a negative, but with a positive through the beauty of the flower and saying, look at this beauty we have in our country, this is something precious.

This is something joyous.

This is something we need to preserve for future generations.

We can't let this get away from us.

And that's a very positive message that people really responded to Legislation that I had my heart and lower than almost anything else was the land and mortar bell, which was past.

I think it's one major reason why Linden held on so vigorously to his last days in office.

The land in Waterville provided funds for parks and wilderness acquisitions.

16 years after the sunny, Mrs. Johnson called this the little known change which helped launch the environmental movement in the sixties.

The first lady's trips combined with the mound of environmental legislation signed by president Johnson gave a tremendous boost to the national park system.

Up until the time of president Carter, president Johnson brought more lands into the national participant than any of his predecessors think of that.

And he did so in the style of theater Roosevelt, our first conservation president Party memento left by the Johnson's on the white house grounds was a children's garden.

Speaker 2: The Johnson put the children's garden in for all future presidents to have a place to put their grandchildren footprints or hand prints.

Speaker 1: Before president Mrs. Johnson returned to their beloved Texas ranch.

The first lady received a special honor from the national capital parks.

I'm standing in front of the Marine Memorial and Ladybird Johnson park.

This area used to be called Columbia island park and because of our commitment to beautification and the results that came from it, it was renamed Ladybird Johnson park in 1968, much to her surprise As the Johnson's headed back to Texas, Mrs. Johnson's title changed from first lady to former first lady, but her beautification efforts continued.

She found a way to encourage native planning along Texas highways by giving awards to the highway maintenance supervisor 20 years, I worked with the highway department and I would give these enterprises and get all of the newspaper attention I could and then focus it on the work at hand.

I want those work when they feel they're doing it, they're doing something for the country.

They'd mow it, Stokes down.

Few faded blossoms, Pitchfork it up on a truck, go down the road, maybe store up the ground a little bit, Pitchfork it off.

It was not, of course the most scientific, productive, useful way, but it was a cheap way.

And we didn't have much money in the states.

Didn't spend it on.

What might've been spoken about by some is provocative, but it's sure they'd make traveling.

And the Texas road, Mrs. Johnston invited her award winners to the LBJ ranch for presentation, ceremony and barbecue.

Liz carpenter was on hand, still enlisting cactus, Pryor as entertainment.

I always had some involvement with nature and the character that she chose for me.

One time, I was a yellow Stripe down the middle of the road.

And another time I was Texas litter with cans and things all over me.

And then lady bird would make the presentation to the award-winning district.

And one time president Johnson showed up on announced.

I'd expected, Speaker 2: Pulled up and, and asked to speak.

And he said, well, I wanted to be here for two reasons.

I wanted to be here because I believe in this.

Cause I think it'll live on long after us.

And then he said, the second reason is I wanted to see lady bird give a thousand dollars away.

Cause she was known for her frugality and thriftiness.

Speaker 1: It's treble is everything takes maintenance, maintenance, maintenance from your house to the governments, highways, parks, cities.

What started will it continue?

It will.

If you get enough support from the citizenry, that's absolutely essential.

If you think about it, there didn't used to be wildflowers growing along all the interstates.

I mean, that's something that she nurtured and in her own way, over these years has kept up.

And I think it will be one of her most enduring legacies.

And whenever I see though, I always say I leave her.

If I had grown up in Vermont, Alabama, which are almost there, Nebraska, whatever, they watch, whatever they'll, I wouldn't put their automatic world.

I would fall in love with that and champions bat and tried to make cute ban.

It makes me grateful that she didn't just retire after the president passed away, but that she continued to work on what she cared about and, and really in her own way, established a niche greater than she had already achieved In the early 1970s.

The former first lady lent her reputation and expertise to building a riverfront hike and bike trail running through the heart of her other favorite capital city, Austin, Texas.

We had meetings and fun trips together.

And gosh, you learn a lot.

For instances often takes a, a $50 hole for a $5 Bush plant tray, whatever Speaker 2: She is, a hands-on activist.

She's not somebody who just writes a check are just mouths it, but she goes, she wants to see the before and after Speaker 1: And on one spring inspection trip, Mrs. Johnson bounded from her car to save a field of wild flowers.

She would always say, let's just steal an afternoon there.

Let's just steal a few hours and we'd do So.

I sat out on a breezy Saturday morning with an absolutely carefree day in front.

And all of a sudden with a gasp, I saw a hillside just solid with pink evening Primrose.

You could hardly look at it without wanting to either pray or saying I shout.

And then I saw a large tractor with a man on it coming down the CEO.

And it was a big machine that had lots and lots of cutting instruments.

It must have been about 12 feet wide and he was just decimating it.

And so I stopped and I got out and went along the fence line was waving at him and he was paying me no mind.

So I crawled over the fence and got in front of the, of the machine and we can shout and wave.

And finally he stopped and I feel sure he thought I was demanded.

And she offered him I think $250 for the seed rights on that.

He would not Mo those pink evening primroses.

She would like to harvest the seed.

That was a happy time.

I have seen the descendants of that field, lots of time on road sides, but always in the back of my mind was gee.

I wish the wild flowers of this wonderful state had a champion.

And I wish I thought the same fields and blue bonnets and Primrose and Indian paintbrush and flocks.

And Coreopsis, we're going to be here for my grandchildren and that children and on down.

And so that began the wildflower center and the concentration on native indigenous plants In 1982, Mrs. Johnson decided to give both herself and the nation a birthday present.

She founded the national wildflower research center in Austin, Texas dedicated to promoting native plants, ecology, and water conservation.

She did Donated all of this land to the wildflower center.

And that's how it got its start.

Now, this was an impossible dream that she had with this wild flower thing, but she made it possible.

She reached to the stars and you knew that she was going to do it because she is tenacious.

She was frustrated by the fact that when you went to a nursery or you went to buy seed, none of the native wild flowers or none of the native plants were basically available.

And in thinking about her love of the land and why, why aren't we using and celebrating our own native flora?

And the answer was, well, we weren't growing it.

And in many instances we didn't know how to grow it.

It hadn't moved from the wild and do commercial production.

So she wanted it a center that would number one, research, how to do that.

And number two, become an advocate for doing that.

And, and I believe that's at the foundation of why she founded the center.

She wanted to promote the interest in wild flowers and native plants in America.

And I just gathered up together, the friends that I had made along the way, and we began to have what else, fundraisers that threads through the whole thing, because it takes the expressed will of the people to get anything done.

And you're likely to express where you will through a gift of money and a gift of time and planning and knowledge.

Speaker 2: So this is appeal to my imagination as a good new idea, and just shows you how tirelessly unwilling to rest on her own horse lady bird is Speaker 1: And own her 70th birthday.

A dedication ceremony was held at the Colorado Riverside.

It was not the time of year when we had a lot of wild flowers because this was December, but lady bird's friends decorated the buses with paper flowers and arrange for a large tent, a huge cake and a grand piano.

One friend bought over pretty Persian carpet to lay down on the grass and to have some of the best to see he didn't buy the cameras.

We're gonna crank out whatever the speaker said, the grand Piano and Oriental rug on the coast.

Bermuda grass is probably appropriate, particularly under a peppermint candy, a tent or awning.

And then she will, my daughter sang a song signifying the beginning of the thing, lady bird was there.

Not literally, I don't believe but poetically through her hat on top of the windmill ticket to get started.

And we were here a number of years before we moved to a better site and, and a much more advantageous Citus for getting the people that In 1995, the lady bird Johnson wildflower center opened its beautiful new facility.

Finally got Bobby, the giving and planning and the help of so many people was a splendid center.

The whole purpose of the thing was to spread an interest and the wild flowers of the region, what would grow best with the least work.

And you just have a better chance if you're using natives and wow plants, they're easier to grow.

If the Lord put them there in the first place and they're Hardy and can survive.

What we hope to do is really change people, attitude about, about natural surroundings and the natural world.

We want people to come here and see that the plants that are from this region of the country when planted together, when planted in a natural way can have really a stunning effect.

I hope that the things embodied here will be a source of joy and I'm making more things like this happen across the broad face of our land maintenance expansion.

So despite the concern over the word, beautification in the sixties, the concept which encompasses respect and care for the environment today is synonymous with lady bird Johnson.

I think we have more people around the world who know who lady bird is and what she did then any other firsts And her legacy of course is, is America the beautiful, and she's been the, the Johnny Appleseed of this era.

I can remember being a kid and I can remember her keeping America beautiful campaign, even though I was less than 10 years old.

I very specifically remember that the roadways got cleaner as a result of that campaign.

Lady, bird Johnson set a pace for all first ladies to follow becoming the first hands-on president's wife, since Eleanor Roosevelt and devoting the rest of her life to the singular cause of her country's natural beauty, Mrs. Johnson created a sense of responsibility about the environment, which will never be matched.

You said that if a child can take a seed and planted and nourishment and she had roll into a full blown, he will become, or she'll become a better citizen.

Then do you know, with a legacy like that, she hits trumped the hearts of people all over this country to become believers in beauty, not just for beauty sake, but for the lasting effect it has on the human spirit.

That's her legacy.

Speaker 2: Roll around each.

She had a dream.

The dream come true When You're rolling on the highway between the Wildlands catch, the dream is you piss The spring time dresses fields with, with paintbrush and with waffles.

Each roadside touched with gray, the chairs And shades of rain boots spread across the miles from When you're rolling on the highway between the Wildlands and the sky catch the the highway through the dream.

As you pass Major funding for lady bird naturally was provided by the Lawrence Rockefeller fund.

Additional funding was provided by the Zachary foundation in tribute to lady bird Johnson, for her dedication, to the environment and the beautification of America, a lasting legacy to all, To obtain a copy of this program for 1995, plus shipping and handling call 1-800-950-NINE 6 4 8.