The first time I saw an image of the old Johnson City school was in Kittie Clyde Leonard's room in Marble Falls. It was an old pen drawing with watercolor added and was inscribed "Education is the foundation of civilization" or something to that effect and signed by Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kittie Clyde was LBJ's high school sweetheart and lifelong friend to the Johnson family.

Sometime during March of 1999, after lunch and at Maxine Sultemeier's home I saw a framed photograph of the same school. This was the school from which Maxine Sultemeier, Kittie Clyde Leonard and Lyndon Johnson graduated and the school where Kittie Clyde later served as superintendent. Maxine let me take the photo and have copies made for use in a watercolor of the old building. When the conversation came around to Lyndon graduating from that same school, Maxine looked off into the distance and said, "I was just a little girl then, but I can still see that big old smart-aleck boy driving around town in that Model T with his foot up on the dashboard", I told Maxine she had just created the image I wanted to use with the school in the background. I verified with Kittie Clyde that Lyndon did drive aggressively and often took sudden unexpected turns and changes of direction, but Kittie Clyde said, "I don't believe it" when asked if Lyndon ever drove with his foot on the dash.

The finished product took a long time and wasn't that successful (it will have to be done again at a later date), but Maxine liked it. What more could a composite artist ask for?

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