HOUSTON (AP) — Former Gov. Mark White has been remembered as a dedicated and caring Texas leader by someone who later held the same elected position — George W. Bush.
The nation’s 43rd president spoke Wednesday at White’s funeral at Second Baptist Church in Houston. White, who battled kidney cancer, died Saturday at age 77.
Bush praised White, who served in the 1980s, as a good and decent man who “envisioned a Texas where all children were educated.”
Gov. Greg Abbott and ex-Gov. Rick Perry were among the hundreds of mourners. Luci Baines Johnson, a daughter of ex-President Lyndon B. Johnson, said White may have retired from public office but never retired from public service.
White was to lie in state Thursday at the Capitol Rotunda, with burial at the Texas State Cemetery.