Texas bids Bush farewell with country music, funeral train

Oak Ridge Boys, among ex-president’s favourites, sang ‘Amazing Grace’

America’s final farewell to George H.W. Bush shifted to Texas yesterday, with his friend and former Secretary of State James Baker addressing him as “Jefe,” Spanish for “boss,” and celebrating him as a president with “the courage of a warrior but the greater courage of a peacemaker.”

Baker fought back tears as he concluded his eulogy.

Country music’s Oak Ridge Boys, among the president’s favourites, sang Amazing Grace and Reba McEntire offered The Lord’s Prayer as three days of official ceremonies in Washington gave way to more personal touches for the Bush in Texas.

The night before, more than 11,000 people paid their respects as his casket lay in repose all night at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where his family worshipped.

At yesterday’s funeral, Baker said, “The world became a better place because George Bush occupied the White House for four years.” He said that Bush embodied some of the nation’s best values, “temperate” in thought, word and deed, “our nation’s very best one-term president”.

George P. Bush, the former president’s grandson and the only member of the political dynasty still holding elected office as Texas land commissioner, struck a more personal tone with the man he and the younger generations called “gampy.”

The services, which attracted local sports stars including Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, featured hymns chosen and loved by the former president.

The capital bade him goodbye on Wednesday in a funeral service that offered high praise for the last of the presidents to have fought in the Second World War — and a hefty dose of humour about a man whose speaking delivery was once described as a cross between Mister Rogers and John Wayne.