The Quiet Girl Who Found Her Voice
If you believe the
word on the street, most of us are afraid of public speaking. It’s called glossophobia.
One young woman named Claudia suffered from glossophobia to such a degree that
she let her grades slip during her senior year of high school just so she
wouldn’t have to give the valedictorian address at her graduation. Little did
she know just how public her speaking would become in the years ahead.
Claudia was a bright
child, but quiet. She preferred spending time
outdoors, and grew to love the tall pines and bayous of East Texas. Her mother died when Claudia was only 5 years old,
and Claudia inherited a fair sum of money. Not a huge fortune, but enough to
open some doors for her later in life.
When Claudia got to college
she began to change. Her friends noticed she was more confident, more outgoing.
She set her sights on a career as a newspaper reporter and completed
a degree in journalism. She also received a teaching degree while she was at it.
But her career dreams were
put on hold when a friend introduced her to a tall young man with political
aspirations. She said she was drawn to him “like a moth to a flame.” He
proposed on their first date. But she held out. She didn’t want to rush into
anything. She made her new boyfriend wait ten whole weeks before the couple
became officially engaged, and then married a short while later.
Claudia invested some of
her inheritance money in her husband’s political aspirations and financed a run
for office. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and later the Senate
representing the great state of Texas and went on to serve more than 20 years.
Ten years into their
marriage, Claudia used another piece of her inheritance money to buy a radio
station and later a TV station, despite her husband’s protests. She reasoned
that her inheritance money was hers to spend how she wanted. The success of
those ventures made her a millionaire. Quiet Claudia had found some courage
after all.
Claudia and her husband
eventually had two children, and Claudia continued supporting her husband’s
political career. At one point, this woman who had avoided a small-town
valedictorian address gave 45 speeches over five days to help her husband’s campaign.
Her husband
eventually became vice president of the United States. Then, after a tragic day
in November 1963, he became our 36th president. The nickname Claudia
picked up as a child suited her perfectly, and Lady Bird Johnson demonstrated
grace and beauty during some of our country’s darkest hours. And as our First
Lady, she championed the cause to transform our nation’s capital. Her efforts
resulted in hundreds of landscaped parks, and the planting of thousands
of daffodils and flowering trees that endure to this day. Her
influence is credited with preventing the construction of dams in the Grand
Canyon and creating Redwoods National Park.
Lady Bird showed
us all how to overcome our fears, how to invest in the things we care about, and
how to use a personal passion to change the world around us. She is quoted as
saying, “A little
beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony, which will
lessen tensions.”
It seems the quiet girl found her voice.
