Visitors invited to help commemorate LBJ's 96th Birthday

What: LBJ's 96th Birthday observed with cake and refreshments
When: Friday, August 27, 2004
Where: West Mall of UT Campus and LBJ Library and Museum
Times: 10 am to 1 pm on West Mall / 9 am to 5 pm at Museum
Admission to Museum: Free

Contact: Anne Wheeler/Communications Director, Office: (512) 721-0216 or Cell: (512) 663-6044

Visitors and students on the University of Texas campus are invited to help commemorate the birthday of the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, on Friday, August 27, 2004. President Johnson would have been 96 on that day. Birthday cake and cold refreshments will be offered for students and visitors on the West Mall of the U.T. campus between 10 am and 1 pm.

In addition, visitors to the LBJ Library and Museum will be served cake and refreshments in the Great Hall of the LBJ Library and Museum beginning at 9 am until 5 pm...or until the cake runs out.

LBJ was born in 1908 in a small cabin along the Pedernales River and died in 1973. He is buried a few yards from his birthplace on the LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Texas.

Visitors to the LBJ Library and Museum will also have the chance to view the exhibit The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden.

This Smithsonian Institution exhibit is comprised of a variety of amazing objects related to the presidency. It's a traveling version of the permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Behring Center.

Among the exhibition's highlights are:
---a surveyor's compass used by George Washington at Mount Vernon
---a brass inkwell used by Abraham Lincoln while writing the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation
---a CBS microphone used by FDR during his "fireside chats"
---a top hat and overcoat worn by Grover Cleveland at his first inauguration in 1885
---a pair of red silk pajamas worn by Warren G. Harding
---a gavel used during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial

To tell the story of the presidency, the exhibition will feature five audio-visual presentations and two interactive experiences. The key storytellers, however, are the 350 artifacts in view in The American Presidency.

The exhibit runs through September 6, 2004.