Bush marks July 4 in town on the Oklahoma plains

Former President George W. Bush spoke yesterday to more than 9,000 people, "the largest crowd to see him speak since he left the White House," at a July 4 celebration in Woodward, Okla., reports Steve Painter of The Woodward News:

“This is a little different from the last eight years,” Bush said about being in Woodward. He said he had spent each Fourth of July during his presidency on the Truman Balcony watching fireworks over the Washington Monument. He did say, however, that he was happy to be in “the middle-of-nowhere oilfield town of Woodward” as The Associated Press had deemed the city on Thursday. “No wonder I feel comfortable here,” Bush said to applause when he quoted the article.

Bush was once in the oil business in Midland, 400 miles to the south-southwest. In his speech, he compared himself to Temple Houston, who was the son of Texas' first governor, Sam Houston, and made his fortune in Woodward, "saying Temple grew up in the governor’s mansion in Texas learning the family business just as he did while his father was a politician," Painter writes. (Encarta map)

Bush had another local angle, Painter reports: "Besides military patriotism, Bush said there were other forms of patriotism. He mentioned some local forms such as Meridian Owens, an 8-year-old Girl Scout who saved several people from a burning building in Woodward this past year." For the rest of Painter's 783-word story on the event, which also marked a $25 million renovation of a local park, click here. The News, a daily paper with a circulation of 5,000, is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. For an AP report, click here.