She was never the country bumpkin that some people on the national scene tried to portray her as after Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States.

And she was never as parochial as her native Texas accent might have suggested when she spoke through a microphone for the entire world to hear.

No, Lady Bird Johnson — with emphasis on "Lady" — was not only the grande dame of Texas. She also would become a bold national symbol of womanhood, capturing the heart of the nation.

And she didn't do it by pretending to be someone or something she was not. She did it simply by being her down-home, cultured, wise and caring self.

She also did it in spite of the shortcomings of her powerful and sometimes domineering husband — a man whom I loved and respected because he had a direct impact on my life and the fate of black and poor people nationwide.

Although I had a great appreciation for the president, I appreciated Lady Bird just as much.

Admittedly, I used to laugh as the stand-up comics made fun of her drawl when she talked about protecting our "trees and shrubs." But I didn't laugh long, because it did not take long to see her commitment, her sincere concern for the disadvantaged around the world and her love for nature, which was matched only by her love for people.

Her retiring nature was an asset, and her understated elegance served her well on the world stage, whether she was meeting with kings or paupers.

Considering her roots in the cotton country of deep East Texas, this Lady could have been a very different woman. But perhaps it was what she saw as a child — the way that certain people were treated or the sheer dignity evidenced by subjugated people — that helped instill in her those humanitarian attributes that she exhibited throughout her long and fruitful life.

I first met Lady Bird in 1971 as a young reporter sent to Austin by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to prepare an extensive Sunday story on the new Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. I would spend more than a week in the state capital, getting to know the library, its exhibits and many of its hidden treasures, as well as its energetic director, Harry Middleton.

For the life of me, I don't know how I — one of the youngest reporters on the staff — drew that assignment. But I'm glad I got it, for that memory will be with me forever.

One day during my visit, Lady Bird was on hand to give me and a few other reporters a tour of the striking new building on the University of Texas campus. I remember her pointing to an exhibit called the "Johnson Agenda," which featured four principal programs of the Johnson presidency: poverty, civil rights, education and health.

"This was the agenda that we tackled with the most muscle," she said at the time.

She was very much a partner with the president, and when she used the word "we", she was being quite accurate.

A lot of Lady Bird's muscle went into those political fights, and she used her intellect to help her husband think through those daring initiatives that would change America for the better.

I can still picture her standing in the shade of a live oak tree with the library and the LBJ School of Public Affairs in the background.

Through the years after the dedication of the library and after the death of LBJ, I often watched in awe as Lady Bird continued to give back to the state and country she loved, tirelessly working to beautify highways and other public spaces with her precious wildflowers and those "trees and shrubs."

It's hard for me to see a patch of bluebonnets without thinking of her, just as every time I'm around a bunch of kids in a Head Start program, both she and her husband come to mind.

On Friday, I returned to the place where I first met her.

Thousands of others also had come to pay her a visit — and to say farewell to a grand lady who touched us all through her goodness.

With the charm of her mother, Lucy Baines Johnson stood at the bottom of the stairway leading to her mother's coffin and greeted hundreds of visitors as they entered.

I told her that I had met her mother two weeks before the library opened. She held my hand and said, "Thanks for coming back to say goodbye."

Bob Ray Sanders is a columnist for the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram.