Bush Given Graduation Gift After Speech
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Michigan is hardly the Old West, but after President Bush (search) gave a commencement speech here Saturday an aide was spotted carrying a fancy brown leather saddle up the rear stairs of Air Force One.
Bush went to Grand Rapids to give a graduation speech at Calvin College and came home with a saddle emblazoned with the presidential seal and decorated with floral patterns and the president's initials, G.W.B. The White House said it was a gift from two artisans but didn't disclose their names.
According to an article published Saturday in The Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot, 77-year-old James Rice of Hudson, Mich., and his assistant, Danielle Cole, spent 90 hours making the saddle last summer at his farm.
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Rice told the newspaper that the saddle was worth about $2,500. He said he made it because Cole's father thought it would be a good idea.
"It has big Texas skirts, a Montana tapadero — the hood over the stirrups — a California stretch seat, a Nebraska horn, made in Boise, Idaho; and the tree, or base, is made in Texas," Rice told the newspaper.
Bush has been dubbed a "windshield rancher'" because he tools around his Texas spread in a white pickup truck. It's unclear what the president, who seems to prefer bikes to horses, plans to do with the saddle.