LBJ Signs Education Bill

Apr. 11, 1965 - President Johnson signed today the $1.3 billion aid-to-education bill at the old country school in Johnson City, Tex., where he had his first lessons.

“As President,” Johnson said, “I believe deeply that no law I have signed or will ever sign means more to the future of our nation.”

At Johnson’s elbow during the ceremony was his first schoolteacher, Mrs. Kate Deadrich Loney, who is now 72. The former Junction rural elementary school is 1½ miles east of the LBJ Ranch. It has been converted into a farm home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Bert Alford of Oklahoma. It is not occupied.

The President, who has sometimes used more than 100 pens to sign a bill, used just one and handed it to Mrs. Loney. She seemed not to realize that it was meant as a souvenir for her and left it on the table as she walked away.

Johnson recalled that he first began to go to the school at the age of 4 when his mother would ask the teacher to mind him while she worked at housecleaning.

“They tell me, Miss Kate, that I recited my first lessons while sitting on your lap,” he said. He attended the school for three years.

Johnson also recalled that he had been a teacher himself. He invited as guests to the ceremony some of the Mexican-American students he taught at Cotulla, Tex., in the late 1920’s.

About seven of his former students visited him at his ranch house and came to the ceremony with him. Also on hand were several students he had taught at San Marcos State Teachers College in the 1920’s. He shook their hands warmly and smiled as one man shouted “speech class” at him as a reminder.

Also on hand were Senator Eugene McCarthy, Democrat of Minnesota, and the House majority leader, Carl Albert of Oklahoma, who were spending the night with Johnson.

The education bill passed the Senate Friday. It provides for $1.06 billion in aid to public schools under a formula designed to channel the aid to school districts serving needy children.

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