Born in New Haven, Connecticut, while his father was a student at Yale University, George W. Bush was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas. After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and graduating from Yale University in 1968, he received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1975. Bush entered the oil business in Midland after college, where his father had also begun his business career. In 1977 he married Laura Lane Welch, a teacher and librarian. In 1978 Bush campaigned for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from a west Texas district but was defeated by the incumbent Democrat.
George W. Bush with his daughters (left to right), Barbara, Jenna, and (in front of Jenna) twin twins, 2001.
George W. Bush with his daughters (left to right), Barbara, Jenna, and (in front of Jenna) twin twins, 2001.
In the early 1980s Bush’s oil and gas company failed, largely the result of the collapse of world oil prices in 1986. That year he also gave up drinking hard liquor in what he later described as “a spiritual awakening” that also strengthened his Christian faith, which had become important to him only a year earlier, after a conversation with the Reverend Billy Graham, the Bush family pastor. After the sale of his company in 1986 for less than two million dollars, Bush spent 18 months working as a speech writer and adviser in his father’s successful campaign for the presidency in 1988. Then, after moving to Dallas, Texas, he and a group of partners bought the Texas Rangers professional baseball team, in which Bush’s investment, although relatively small, gave him the position of managing partner. With his increased visibility in the media, Bush’s reputation as a successful businessman flourished. The partnership sold the team in 1998 for $530 million; Bush received nearly $15 million.