#8
Austin American-Statesman (Texas)
November 8, 2001
Crawford is abuzz with talk of summit
Town's residents prepare to be on display during Russian President Putin's visit
next week
By Kevin Robbins
CRAWFORD — After last year's election, the people here knew national attention was coming to their scrappy little community. Now they're about to welcome the world to town.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet next week at Bush's McLennan County ranch. With them will be the international press — about 200 reporters who assuredly will jot down their impressions of Central Texas.
The Nov. 12 through 14 foreign-policy summit is scheduled to begin in Washington and end in Crawford, where the Bushes own a 1,600-acre ranch known as The Western White House.
Putin's visit there will be the second involving a foreign leader. Mexican President Vicente Fox was the first.
But that was before Sept. 11, and security will be tighter for the upcoming event. Already, a security booth is under construction at the gate to the Bush ranch on Prairie Chapel Road.
Many details of Putin's visit remain unpublicized. The people who live here aren't sure what to expect.
"The whole town's buzzing about this," said Jo Staton of The Red Bull gift shop.
Earlier this week, Staton said, she and shop owner Raydean Damon traveled to Dallas to stock their inventory for the visit. They brought back spoons, shot glasses and other items displaying the American flag.
If the international visitors prefer something else, Staton can show them to the display of Texan birdhouses. Protected by roofs of Texas car license plates bent in half, they sell for $8.50 to $27 (or 252 to 855 rubles.)
Down the street, at a gift shop called The Brown Bag, owner Kathy Nagel said she planned to have a "Texas open house" for the visitors. "We need to show ourselves off," she said.
There's a new item at The Brown Bag this week. It's a folksy sign painted with the words THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING.
"That says it all," Nagel said.
The town of Crawford has no hotel rooms, but it does have a swimming hole in a hiccuping river, a restaurant with good patty melts and smooth highways between the Fina station and nearby Waco. The presidential entourages and reporters covering the visit will stay in that city, which has 2,300 rooms.
About 500 rooms will be used by government staff and press, said Lori Jarvis, marketing and communications manager for the Waco Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Waco is home to Baylor University, the Dr Pepper Museum, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. But, Jarvis said, nothing of so much global significance has been seen in the city of 113,000.
"There's never been an event of this sort. This is just a whole different ballgame."
The excitement is tempered for some in Crawford, where about 700 people live. The presence of the Bush ranch hasn't meant the kind of riches the community expected, said Teresa Bowdoin, the secretary of the newly formed chamber of commerce.
Bowdoin said people were told that throngs of tourists would come through Crawford and spend money on food, gas and souvenirs. That hasn't been the case, she said ruefully, and she doesn't expect it to be during the summit.
"Whenever it happens, we'll believe it," Bowdoin said. If it doesn't, that's fine with her, too. "It keeps Crawford more like Crawford and not like a big tourist trap."
To get there, the two presidents likely will travel RM 185 from Waco. It's a drive of just a few miles, but it's quite Texan. They'll pass cattle, limestone, goats, oak trees and miles of barbed-wire fence.
It'll be nice enough to open the windows and breathe in the air. It's supposed to be sunny and in the low 70s next week in Waco, so the Russians might want
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