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Crowds gather in front of the Natchez gazebo to hear Vice President George H. Bush in 1984. (file photo)

Vice President George H. Bush shales hands with supporters after speaking on the bluff in 1984. (file photo)

VIce President George H. Bush waves from the gazebo beside Natchez Mayor David Armstrong in 1984. (file photo)

(file photo)

Camera crews race to Air Force Two after landing at the Natchez airport. (file photo)

Vice President George H. Bush speaks to the Natchez Democrat in 1984. (file photo)

Vice President George Bush and his wife Barbara Bush emerge from Air Force Two at the Natchez Airport. (file photo)

Vice President George Bush gives a campaign speech in 1984 from the bandstand on the Natchez bluff. (file photo)

President George H. Bush gives the commencement address at Alcorn State University on May 13, 1989.

NATCHEZ — Natchez residents have fond memories of former President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday night at the age of 94.

Jack Stephens, former chairman of the Adams County Republican Party, said Bush was no stranger to Natchez.

“He was a frequent visitor to Mississippi,” Stephens said. “He was in the oil business, and he did a lot of work offshore. He purchased a lot of rigs from the LeTourneau facility outside Vicksburg. He knew the area well and had been to Natchez many times before he was vice president when he was just a business man.”

In late October 1984, then-Vice President Bush visited Natchez to campaign for Republican Congressional candidate David Armstrong, who was running against incumbent Democrat Wayne Dowdy. Ronald Reagan and Bush were also running against Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.

“That was a wonderful day for Natchez,” Stephens said, recalling the logistics that went into preparing for the Bush visit with just three or four days’ advance notice.

Secret Service agents showed up early to thoroughly check the proposed route for the vice president’s motorcade to go from the Natchez-Adams County Airport to the bluff where the president would speak from the gazebo facing south, Stephens said.

“The Secret Service surveyed the route, checking manhole covers and the sewer system underneath St. Catherine Street,” Stephens said, adding they welded manhole covers shut and installed telephones in trees to make calls along the route.

“(The president) arrived in the limousine, and a Suburban and six guys jumped out all dressed in black half of them had a foam rubber arm covering from the arm all the way down to the ground and they were carrying submachine guns,” Stephens said. “About half of the guys had submachine guns.”

Stephens, who sat on the gazebo platform with Bush that day, has fond memories of the experience.

“He was extremely cordial,” Stephens said. “He did interviews with school children for the school newspaper. Butch Brown’s son, Sessions, did an interview with him there at the Eola, which was the headquarters.”

Kate Feltus of Natchez was 5-years-old when Bush visited Natchez that October in 1984, but she has fond memories of the experience.

“I still remember being hoisted up on my daddy’s shoulders back in the ’80s to see George H.W. Bush speaking from the gazebo on the bluff in Natchez,” Feltus wrote in a social media post early Saturday after learning of Bush’s death. “What a prince of a man he was. Later in life I fell in love with his and Barbara’s beautiful love story. Steadfast and true, like my grandparents who not only were married 72 years like the Bushes (until my grandmother died in 2017) but celebrated anniversaries down to the same day, Jan. 6, 1945! Truly a special day with two of my favorite love stories from the Greatest Generation. All my love and prayers. No. 41.”

Feltus said the day left a lasting impression on her even though she was too young to fully grasp the concept of the event.

“I just remember being on the bluff and being there with parents and brothers,” Feltus said. “It was just an exciting event. The Bushes have just always been in my life. His son, George W., was the commencement speaker at my graduation from LSU in 2004. I think he (George H.W.) was a kind and gentle soul and gentle to the core. I admire he and his wife, Barbara (who died earlier this year).”

Stephens, who was the chairman of the Adams County Republican Party for approximately 10 years from 1986 to 1996, also recalled George H.W. Bush’s visit to Natchez when he was president and delivered the commencement address in May 1989 at Alcorn State University.

Stephens said the commencement was held in the Alcorn basketball arena, and he got to visit with the president for approximately 30 minutes in private before he delivered the address.

“He was a regular guy,” Stephens said. “It impressed me. There he was, the President of the United States and if I didn’t know it, I wouldn’t know it. He was very friendly, very open.”

Stephens recalled that after the address, all of presidents of the state’s community colleges and universities formed a receiving line to talk to Bush after the commencement.

Stephens said his wife, Claudia, positioned herself at the end of the line and when President Bush got to her, she said, “Claudia Stephens, University of Mississippi.”

“It was quite humorous,” Stephens said. “He thought it was humorous, too, because he already met her as my wife.”

Stephens said Bush’s biggest asset beyond being a nice guy was his wife, Barbara Bush.

“She was just as open and honest as he was,” Stephens said. “They were like regular neighbors. Just regular folks.”

Barbara Winston of Natchez, who met the Bushes at an Ageless Heroes Award Ceremony in Chicago in 1999 when her mother, Harriet Smith, received a literacy award, said she, too, found the Bushes to be personable and friendly people.

“It was just the highlight of my life,” Winston said of meeting the former president and first lady. “They were very down-to-earth people, and we just enjoyed the whole thing.”

Winston said meeting the Bushes was her first time to meet true dignitaries.

“He was a person who had traveled and been in politics a long time,” Winston said, “and that he could actually relate to a Southern girl from Mississippi showed a lot about his character, and his wife was the same way. They had a way of making you comfortable and putting you at ease.”

Patrick Mulhearn was a 9-year-old fourth-grader at Trinity Elementary School when he got to shake Vice-President Bush’s hand when he spoke at the gazebo on the bluff in October 1984.

“My mom brought me up there,” said Mulhearn, who now lives in Port Allen, Louisiana. “We parked at dad’s office, went to the gazebo and sat on the front row, and I shook hands with him. I’m 43 years old now, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t shaken hands with anyone else who has occupied the White House. A lot of candidates don’t realize how memorable something like that can be for somebody from a small town like Natchez.”

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