Veteran, businessman shares strategy used to help secure the Bush Library’s location in Aggieland

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – When you think about our community there’s a handful of landmarks that may come to mind. Kyle Field, the Queen Theatre in Downtown Bryan, and the Bush Library.

It was more than three decades ago when a group of influential leaders in our community successfully argued for the Bush Presidential Library and Museum to be built on the campus of A&M.

Louis Newman, veteran and owner of Newman Printing Company in Bryan, remembers it like it was yesterday. He was on a committee in the early 90s that successfully put together a strategy to persuade George and Barbara Bush to choose A&M as the place to put the presidential museum.

“When President Bush decided the library was going to be in Texas and not Yale, that’s what gave me the green light. I went to work that day,” said Newman from his office.

At the time, the committee of local leaders in Aggieland was up against several universities that argued it belonged in Houston.

“I just felt like because of his background, and being the head of the CIA, a war hero of World War 2, ambassador, and all of his military accomplishments, he was just perfect for Texas A&M, a conservative university,” said Newman, who also reminded everyone that the library would be established in a community that routinely votes Republican in presidential elections.

Newman says the community leaders here also pointed out that the museum and library in Houston would just be another attraction, whereas here in College Station it would be THE attraction paired with a world-class university that would help share and protect the presidential records.

The other point argued, was how a library in College Station would be much easier and safer for school children to access on field trips.

The other mistake Houston made, Newman says, is that Houston representatives went directly to the Bush family to make their case, but what the local pack opted to do instead was go to the national archivist at the time, knowing that his recommendation would be heavily considered by the 41st President.

“We had to go and get to know him and learn more about him. So I was the only one that had his ear. It never occurred to Houston. They never talked to him,” said Newman.

Mr. Newman says the community support and fundraising here at home and around the world helped seal the deal, and in 1991 President Bush shared the good news about the library’s location. Now more than 30 years later, it is hard to imagine Aggieland without it.

Next year the museum will unveil a new exhibit in a new building featuring the 4141 locomotive that carried President Bush back to his final resting place outside the museum, next to his wife and their daughter.