First Lady Gives Cheer to Literacy Program

While her husband traveled up the coast to San Francisco, First Lady Barbara Bush paid a visit to Montebello on Wednesday where she observed the operations of a regional literacy program and congratulated some of its participants.

The Montebello Public Library, a usually quiet haven for students and assorted book seekers, was abuzz with Secret Service agents, news media crews and members of the White House entourage as Mrs. Bush arrived for a one-hour visit.

“I’m here to cheer these people,” she said, referring to several adults who have learned to read through the Los Angeles County library program. “I’m thrilled with what California has done.”

The County Public Library system provides adult literacy programs as part of the 5-year-old California Literacy Campaign. In 1986, a toll-free, multilingual literacy hot line began at the Montebello library, making it a headquarters linking those wanting to learn to read with those willing to teach them. The regional program has had more than 8,000 students, many of whom found tutors by dialing the hot line number--1-800-372-6641.

After her arrival at 10:30 a.m., Mrs. Bush, honorary chairwoman of the National Advisory Council of Literacy Volunteers of America, watched briefly as the coordinator of the Community Access Library Line fielded two hot line calls about the literacy program.

The First Lady chatted with 12 of the program’s tutors and students, among them a 52-year-old man who sought help so he could read his Bible, and a 45-year-old mother of nine who last week wrote a letter for the first time in her life.

After meeting the First Lady, student William Heeney, 27, explained why he entered the program in July, 1988.

“I thought ‘how could I look after my kids if anything happened to my wife?’

“I never thought it would get this big,” said the father of two, who owns a construction business. “I never thought I’d meet the President’s wife.”

It could inflate a man’s ego, meeting Barbara Bush, said student Chris Norton, 26, a landscaper. He said it would be a nice story to rub in the face of those kids, now grown, who called him “retarded” because he had to take special education classes when he was a little boy. But he won’t.

“I feel special (to have met her). . . . But deep down inside, I’m no better than they are,” said Norton, whose reading skills have jumped from a second- to a sixth-grade level. “I wish they could have felt that way (in school); that they were no better than anybody else.”

Norton said low self-esteem because he could not read kept him from participating in sports and other activities as a child.

“It’s just a lonely world not knowing how to read,” he said. “I just wish I could’ve done this when I was 10 years old and not 26.”

Mrs. Bush praised the regional program and the statewide literacy campaign, but added that there is still much work to be done to combat the problem of illiteracy.

“When I hear you have a million people who need help, then you have to get a bigger campaign going,” she said, referring to the estimated number of functionally illiterate adults living in the county. “I’m not knocking Los Angeles. It’s all over the country.”

Mrs. Bush left with a bouquet of red roses, and at least one new fan.

George Bush “is a good guy,” said Norton, standing outside the library door. But “if she was President, I’d vote for her.”