NAMES IN THE NEWS : Lake Lady Bird Nee Town Lake?

Town Lake may get a new name: Lake Lady Bird, after the widow of former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“We want to put you on the map--forever,” Austin Mayor Lee Cooke told her at a dinner last week to mark the 25th anniversary of her husband’s inauguration.

“Lady Bird Johnson has cultivated beauty, and she has shared it with us. . . . This is our way of saying ‘thank you’ for the many gifts of beauty, courage and care that she has so generously brought to our world,” Cooke said.

The dinner was at the LBJ Library at the University of Texas.

Cooke said a majority of the City Council has agreed to the name change. A formal vote is scheduled Tuesday.

Town Lake was created on the Colorado River in 1959. But plans to beautify its shores and create hiking and biking trails foundered until the former First Lady lent her name, time and money to the project in 1970.