George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. Formerly the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, Bush has earned a reputation as a compassionate conservative who shapes policy based on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, strong families, and local control.
George W. Bush was born July 6, 1946, and grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas. He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard before beginning his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975, working in the energy industry until 1986. After working on his father's successful 1988 presidential campaign, he assembled the group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989.
He served as managing general partner of the Texas Rangers until he was elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In an historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas Governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998, winning 68.6 percent of the vote.
As President, Bush will pursue the same common-sense approach and bipartisan spirit as he has in Texas. He has proposed bold initiatives to ensure that America's prosperity has a purpose. He has also addressed improving our nation's public schools by strengthening local control and insisting on accountability; reducing taxes on all taxpayers, especially for those Americans on the fringes of poverty; strengthening the military with better pay, better planning, and better equipment; saving and strengthening Social Security and Medicare by providing seniors with more options; and ushering in the responsibility era in America.
President Bush is married to Laura Welch Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have 19-year-old twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. The Bush family also includes their two dogs, Spot and Barney, and a cat, India.
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. George W. attended public school in San Jacinto, Texas, where he had been the school's quarterback and seventh grade class president.
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.

• Married: 15 NOV 1977 ¹ in Glass Memorial Chapel, First United Memorial Church, Midland Co., TX

1. Barbara Pierce BUSH b: 25 NOV 1981 in Dallas, Dallas Co., TX
2. Jenna Welch BUSH b: 25 NOV 1981 in Dallas, Dallas Co., TX

1. Title: Texas Department of Health
   Repository:
   Media: Book
   Text: File Number 137552