Alberto Gonzales will introduce Bush, and the former U.S. attorney general, now a Texas Tech visiting professor, will also moderate the evening’s event.Barbara Bush can pick and choose her speaking venues, but her love of West Texas appears to have drawn the former first lady to an intimate setting at the Lubbock Women’s Club scheduled April 15, and local leaders have come together to assure she is treated to hospitality as big as Texas.
“Out of all the huge speaking engagements she could choose from, she said yes to ours, a small intimate evening with 250 guests, and I don’t think we could get a speaker that our members identify with any better than with Barbara Bush,” said Peggy Dean, Lubbock Women’s Club president....
PlainsCapital Bank is flying Bush and her security detail to the event in a corporate Citation Excel jet. “We are a strong advocate for what’s good for Lubbock is what is good for our bank," said John Owens, chairman of the West Texas Region of PlainsCapital. "This is our home bank. Although our corporate office is in Dallas, 90 percent of our shareholders live here. Ruth Schiemeyer, who is in charge of the publicity over at The Lubbock Women’s Club, is the connection, politically. She has been a strong advocate for this bank in the past, present and I’m sure for the future, and she called us up and asked if we would be willing to help get Mrs. Bush to the club. So we did.”....
"We were high fiving, jumping and hollering when we got back word she would be coming. This is certainly the biggest speaker we’ve had since Carmen bin Laden.”
http://lubbockonline.com/life/2011-04-06/barbara-bush-speak-womens-club