Centennial Project:
The Bush Home
The Odessa Rotary Club teamed up with the Odessa Board of Realtors to
restore The Bush House. The Bush House is a small house George and
Barbara Bush lived in when they lived in Odessa, Texas in the early
1950's. President Bush lived in the house as a youngster, so two U.S.
Presidents have lived in this house. The house is not only a treasure
to our community, but to our state and our country.
The house was on 17th Street and it has been moved to the campus of
the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. It is located
immediately behind the Presidential Museum on University Blvd. in
Odessa, Texas.
The Odessa Rotary Club volunteered to work on the house for six full
Saturdays and to pay for a septic system to be installed at the
house. We decided to pay for the septic system because we thought it
was a nice tie-in with Rotary's first project of installing a public
restroom.
We had 85 club members working on the project, filling 142 work
shifts. We had 76 club members take District Governor Charles
Cotten's Centennial Challenge to work on the Centennial Project and we
had had 85 actually sign up for a work shift to restore The Bush
House. That's over 110% participation, which is just like a good
group of Rotarians!
Restoring The Bush House was the largest project we have worked on in
many years. Three Saturdays in August were spent preparing the house
to be painted, repairing windows, scraping off old paint, filling nail
holes, caulking windows, sanding wood surfaces, tearing out old
insulation in the house, installing new insulation and sheet rock
inside the house, and scraping old paint off of the ceilings in the
house. In October, we worked for three Saturdays on the landscaping.
The house has a nice wooden fence, shrubbery, grass, flowers and
trees. It has been restored to its condition in the early 1950's,
complete with wallpaper, furnishings and even a 1950's car in the
carport.
The Bush House opened as a museum in December, 2004. The Odessa
Rotary Club has a 24" x 24" plaque on the museum grounds regarding our
service to restore the house.
We received excellent media
coverage. There was a big picture and an article in the Odessa
American newspaper and all three network television stations did a
story on our efforts for their nightly news program. I also did a
radio interview for KCRS radio.
Bill Berry
President
Odessa Rotary Club
Photo Album
President Bill Berry extends a special thank you
to all of the
Odessa Rotary Club members who worked on the restoration of
The Bush Home:
| Joe Allbright |
Andy Anderson |
Gloria Apolinario |
| David Austin |
Bruce Bangert |
Sharon Beard |
| Bill Berry |
Royce Bodiford |
Patrick Canty |
| Penni Howell Chambers |
Karen Chesnut |
Troy Chesnut |
| Doug Chisum |
Virginia Chisum |
Laura Deaderick |
| Gary Douglas |
Frank Drace |
Bill Duncan |
| Lisa Crenshaw Estes |
Gay Fields |
Cathy Figert |
| Mark Glowers |
Bill Fowler |
Montie Garner |
| Barbara Gladden |
Barbara Graff |
Judy Hayes |
| Tammy Hawkins |
Leldon Hensley |
Cathy Herzog |
| Barbara Hill |
Chuck Hornung |
Mary Hunt |
| Earl Husband |
Paul Jennings |
Joan C. Johnson |
| Karen Johnson |
Larry Johnson |
Al Karickhoff |
| Jay Kirk |
Mark Knox |
LaDoyce Lambert |
| Mike Mazur |
Karen McCord |
Kathy McIntyre |
| Tom McMinn |
Robert Meek |
Larry Melton |
| Mike Nieto |
R. C. Paulette |
Marc Powell |
| Tom Pursel |
Louis Rochester |
John Rogers |
| Mike Rush |
Curtis Saylor |
Bernie Sedate |
| Bob Slider |
Tom Snoddy |
Tom Sprawls |
| Cressinda Springer |
Harold Thomas |
Pam Uslan |
| Steve Uslan |
Ken Valla |
Craig Van Amburgh |
| Wendell Warren |
Nancy Wells |
Denny Williams |
| John Willis |
Merry Worley |
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