| Jenna Bush Hager | |
|---|---|
prior to her wedding to Henry Hager |
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| Born | Jenna Welch Bush November 25, 1981 Dallas, Texas |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin |
| Occupation | Teacher Author Correspondent |
| Spouse | Henry Chase Hager (m. 2008) |
| Parents | George W. Bush and Laura Bush |
| Relatives | Barbara Pierce Bush (twin sister) George H. W. Bush (grandfather) Barbara Bush (grandmother) Dorothy Walker Bush (great-grandmother) John H. Hager (father-in-law) |
Jenna Welch Bush Hager[1] (born November 25, 1981)[2] is the younger of the sororal twin daughters of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, and a granddaughter of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush. She and her sister, Barbara, were the first twin children of a U.S. President. Bush is a teacher's aide, an author, and a correspondent for NBC's Today show.[3]
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Bush was named after her maternal grandmother, Jenna Hawkins Welch.[4] She was educated at several primary and secondary schools. In Dallas, Texas, she and her sister attended Preston Hollow Elementary School and then The Hockaday School. In 1994, after her father was elected Governor of Texas and the family moved to Austin, Texas, Bush was a student at St. Andrew's Episcopal School, and attended Austin High School from 1996 until her graduation in 2000.[5]
She attended The University of Texas at Austin and took summer classes at New York University. She was a legacy member of Kappa Alpha Theta, both her mother's and twin sister's sorority. While there, Jenna and her twin sister Barbara made national headlines when they were both arrested for alcohol related charges twice within 5 weeks: on April 29, 2001, Jenna was charged with a misdemeanor for possession of alcohol under the age 21 in Austin. On May 29, 2001, Jenna 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 charges.[6][7][8][9] Jenna Bush graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in English in 2004.
She had asked her father not to run for president in 2000: "Oh, I just wish you wouldn't run. It's going to change our life." Her father told her that he and her mother needed to live their lives.[10] However, in the winter of 2003, she decided to become involved in the 2004 campaign.[10] In response to this decision, she made media appearances during the summer of 2004 prior to the election. She and her sister made several joint public appearances, including giving a speech to the Republican Convention on August 31, 2004.[11] She made headlines when she was found sticking her tongue out to media photographers at a campaign stop in St. Louis.[12] Hager and Barbara took turns traveling to swing states with their father and also gave a seven-page interview and photo shoot in Vogue.[4] The media also extensively covered the campaigning of John Kerry's daughters Vanessa and Alexandra, making the "battle of the daughters" a human interest element of the campaign.
Before leaving Washington, D.C. in Summer 2006, Hager worked at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School for a year and a half as a teacher's aide.[13] She took a leave of absence from the Charter School teaching position to work at a shelter as part of an internship for UNICEF's Educational Policy Department in Latin America, specifically in Panama.[14][15] After her internship for UNICEF, Hager returned to her position at the charter school in Washington, D.C.[16] She currently works as a part-time reading coordinator at the SEED Public Charter School in Baltimore, Maryland, and contributes a monthly news story about education for the Today show.[17]
In 2007, Hager began marketing a book proposal with the assistance of Robert B. Barnett, a Washington attorney.[18] The title of the book is Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope and it chronicles her experiences working with UNICEF sponsored charities in Latin America, including visits to drought stricken Paraguay in 2006, while working as an intern for United Nations Children's Fund.[19][20][21][22] HarperCollins announced in March 2007 it would publish the book and it was released September 28, 2007, with an initial printing of 500,000 copies.[23] Her share of the profits will go to UNICEF; the remainder will go to the woman whose life is the basis of the book, assisting in the young woman's continuing education.[24] During the book tour, to promote the book, Hager appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show; during the interview Hager telephoned her parents.[25][26] Hager wrote a second book, in conjunction with her mother, which is designed to encourage children to read.[27] The book, entitled Read All About It!, was published on April 22, 2008, also by HarperCollins.[28]
In August 2009, NBC hired Hager as a new correspondent for the morning television show Today. Her role is to contribute stories about once a month on issues such as education.[29] On April 19, 2010, Hager interviewed former President Bill Clinton and discussed Haiti and his daughter Chelsea's upcoming marriage.[30]
Hager has declined to discuss her father's policies and ideology on HIV, family planning, and the United Nations generally, specifically the withholding of funds from United Nations Population Fund's HIV prevention programs in 2007.[31] She has said that "I'm not my dad," and "I can tell you that UNICEF is doing incredible work."[32]
On August 15, 2007, Henry Chase Hager proposed to Jenna Bush on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine.[32][33][34][35] They met during her father's 2004 presidential campaign.[36] Their relationship became public when the two appeared together at a White House dinner for The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall in November 2005. Henry Hager attended St. Christopher's School in Richmond, Virginia, and holds an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. He worked as a U.S. Department of Commerce aide for Carlos Gutierrez and as a White House aide for Karl Rove.[37] He is the son of former Virginia Republican Party Chairman John H. Hager, who previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and as the U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary under George W. Bush.[38] The wedding took place during a private ceremony on May 10, 2008, at her parents' Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford, Texas. On June 21, 2008, President Bush hosted a wedding reception for Jenna and Henry at the White House. The guests included many Republicans, such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The United States Marine Band performed.[39]
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