Keating praises Bush as nation prepares for memorial service
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating described George H.W. Bush as the “quintessential gentleman” Tuesday as accolades continued to pour in for the former president known for his compassionate diplomacy.
Bush died Friday at age 94. A state funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at the National Cathedral.
“Those of us who knew him will miss him terribly,” Keating said Tuesday from a Dallas-Fort Worth airport where he was preparing to board a flight to Washington, D.C., to attend Bush’s memorial service.
“He was always courteous and humble and decent. He was very informed on whatever issue you wanted to present to him. He was not bossy or a bully.”
Keating got to work with Bush during the second administration of former President Ronald Reagan, when Bush was the vice president and Keating served as an assistant secretary of the Treasury and later as an associate attorney general. Keating fondly recalled attending meetings that Bush chaired as part of his duties as vice president.
“He chaired meetings of border law enforcement issues and handled that with great skill and courage and information, even though that wasn’t his first love or interest,” Keating said.
Keating also recalled that when Bush was vice president, he came to Oklahoma to help Keating run for office.
Perhaps the ultimate compliment to Bush was paid Tuesday by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.
With the help of an aide, an unsteady Dole rose from his wheelchair to give one last salute to the flag-draped casket of his former colleague and commander in chief.
After Wednesday’s service at the National Cathedral, Bush will be flown to Houston with a scheduled arrival of around 4:30 p.m. His body will be transported by motorcade to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where he and his wife regularly worshipped. A public viewing of Bush’s casket will be held at the church from 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday until 6 a.m. on Thursday.
On Thursday, a private funeral service with about 1,200 invited guests will be held at the church starting at 10 a.m. After the hour-long service, a motorcade will transport Bush’s casket to a train station north of Houston, near the international airport named after Bush.
A ceremony will be held at the train station as Bush’s casket is loaded onto a Union Pacific train. The train will take about 2 ½ hours to travel roughly 70 miles to the city of College Station, home to Bush’s presidential library at Texas A&M University.
The locomotive has been painted the colors of the Air Force One plane used during Bush’s presidency and bears the number “4141” in honor of the 41st president. The casket will be in a car with Plexiglas windows to allow people to see it during the trip, according to a family spokesman.
The train is scheduled to arrive in College Station on Thursday around 3:45 p.m. Bush’s casket then will be transported by motorcade to the presidential library, where he will be buried at the gated family plot near his wife and their daughter Robin, who died of leukemia at age 3. Barbara Bush died on April 17 at their Houston home. The couple were married for 73 years, longer than any other U.S. presidential couple.
Ceremonies at the presidential library will include a missing man formation flyover.