Barbara Pierce Bush

For the wife of George H.W. Bush, see Barbara Bush.

Barbara Pierce Bush (born November 25, 1981) is the elder of the sororal twin daughters (the other is Jenna Hager, née Bush) of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, and the granddaughter of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and his wife Barbara Bush, after whom she was named. She is also a fourth cousin six times removed of the 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce.^[1]

Biography

Barbara Pierce Bush was born at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.^[2] When the family lived in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas, she and her twin sister, Jenna, attended Preston Hollow Elementary School; Laura Bush served on Preston Hollow's Parent Teachers Association at that time.^[3] Later, she and Jenna attended The Hockaday School in Dallas. When her father became Governor of Texas in 1994, Barbara attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas. In 1996, Barbara began attending Austin High School, graduating with the class of 2000.^[4]

She attended Yale University where she was a legacy member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority (her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, and her twin sister Jenna are also members of Kappa Alpha Theta). On April 29, 2001, Bush was charged with a Class C misdemeanor for being in the possession of alcohol under the age 21 in Austin. On May 29, 2001, Bush was charged with another misdemeanor — attempting to use a fake ID (with the name Barbara Pierce, her paternal grandmother's maiden name) to purchase alcohol. She pleaded no contest to both misdemeanors.^[5]

Bush lives in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.^[6] Recently she has been working for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, a subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution.^[7][8] Previously, she had been working with AIDS patients in Africa, in Tanzania, South Africa, and Botswana, among other places, through a program sponsored by the Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine's International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative^{[9][10][11][12]} She is the co-founder and president of a public health-focused non-profit, Global Health Corps.^[13]

In 2009, Global Health Corps won a prestigious Draper Richards Foundation Fellowship.^[14]

In 2011, Bush released a video with the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, calling on New York State to legalize same-sex marriage.^[15][16] "'I am Barbara Bush, and I am a New Yorker for marriage equality,' she says in the brief message, sponsored by an advocacy group. 'New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.'"^[16] Bush joined other children of prominent Republican politicians—including Meghan McCain and Mary Cheney—in endorsing gay marriage.^[16]

Media coverage

Barbara's graduation from Yale in May 2004 was given heavy media coverage. She and Jenna made several media appearances that summer prior to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, including giving a speech to the Republican Convention on August 31.^[17] The two took turns traveling to swing states with their father and also gave a seven-page interview and photo shoot in Vogue.^[18][19] Barbara joined her mother on diplomatic trips to Liberia in January 2006 to attend the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and to Vatican City to meet with Pope Benedict XVI in February 2006.

Ancestry

References

Notes

External links

• Profile at Global Health Corps
• Barbara Pierce Bush on Facebook
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Barbara Pierce Bush at the Internet Movie Database