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At the age of seven,
George W. Bush was forced to deal with a very grown up fact of life:
the death of his sister. Pauline "Robin" Bush died of leukemia
two months before her fourth birthday. The family was overcome with
grief. But it was young George's outgoing personality and wit that helped
the family through the tragedy. Those traits would define his character
throughout his life. George Walker Bush
was born on July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Conn., to Barbara and George
H. W. Bush. Before George's first birthday, his father graduated from
Yale University and the family moved to Texas, where George Sr. got
his start in the booming oil business. As a child, Bush
loved to play games and tell jokes. While he physically took after his
father, his wit and demeanor were inherited from his mother. From an
early age, little George was much closer to his mother than to his father.
In 1959 the family
moved to Houston, where George began the eighth grade at the private
Kincaid School. Two years later he went off to Massachusetts, to attend
one of the nation's most exclusive preparatory schools, Phillips Andover
Academy, his father's alma mater. At Andover, Bush
was a better athlete than student and during his years at Andover, he
played varsity baseball and basketball. He was the head football cheerleader
his senior year (cheerleaders were mostly boys back then) and also organized
the school's stickball league. On campus, other
students thought of him as the larger-than-life Texan and during his
senior year, he came in second for the Big Man on Campus. As a senior,
he applied to only two colleges, the University of Texas and Yale. George W. began his freshman year at Yale in 1964. While the nation was in upheaval over the Vietnam War, young George clung to college traditions like fraternity parties, secret societies, and football games. As at Andover, George was a mediocre student, but he was active in intramural sports, his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Skull and Bones, the secret society of which his father had been a member. He partied and played
pranks. Instead of joining many of his fellow classmates in their protests
against the war, he quietly defended his father's position that the
country should support its men in uniform. In 1968, Bush graduated
from Yale with a degree in history. In May of 1968, 12 days before he
would have to sign up for the draft, Bush signed up for pilot training
with the Texas Air National Guard. Acceptance into the Guard would allow
him to fulfill his military service at a base in Texas, avoiding assignment
to Vietnam. Bush was sworn in as an airman the same day that he applied. After several years
in the Guard and drifting from job to job, George W. went to business
school at Harvard. He was not, however, a typical Harvard business school
student: he did not want to go to Wall Street. He was not going to end
up on the East Coast, he said. Texas was calling him home. He graduated
from Harvard in 1975 and returned to Houston to work as an entry-level
land man in the oil business. In 1975, Bush ran
for his first political office, a seat in the United States House of
Representatives. Despite winning the Republican primary against two
powerful opponents, Bush was defeated by the Democratic candidate. In November 1977,
only three months after meeting her at a mutual friend's party, George
W. married Laura Welch. They would later have twin daughters, Barbara
and Jenna. 1986 was a turning
point in Bush's life. After several years as an unsuccessful oil man
in Texas, Bush sold his company and made a large profit that he would
later use to invest in the Texas Rangers baseball team. It was in this
same year, at the age of 40, that Bush gave up alcohol for good. He
says he focused on taking control of his life. He quit drinking on his
own and credits his renewed faith in God for his success. After working for
his dad's presidential campaign, and buying part of the Texas Rangers,
Bush decided it was time to run for office again. He had had thoughts
of running for Governor of Texas before 1992, but it was only then that
his father's political shadow and his own negative feelings towards
politics were beginning to fade. After a close race,
Bush defeated then-Governor Ann Richards in 1994. In 1998, he became
the first Texas Governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms.
In August 2000, he became the second in the Bush family to be nominated
as the Republican National Party's candidate for President of the United
States. RealAudio: The Winston-Salem Debate Bush speaks to students at Springfield High School in Holland, Ohio -- Watch Bush's speech in streaming video RealAudio: Bush gives a speech on Education RealAudio:
Bush addresses the NAACP
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Republican
Candidate