Texas first lady builds her own legacy

Long before Anita Perry became the first lady of Texas, she was Anita Thigpen, nursing student at West Texas State University.

Long before she encouraged her husband, Rick Perry, to run for president, she returned as a nursing instructor at WT.

Long before she was speaking on the presidential campaign trail, she was speaking in front of an audience at WT to dedicate a new nursing facility.

“That was always my impression, that she had a lot of admiration and appreciation for WT and what the school did for her,” said Dr. Russell Long, former WT president. “I think she has a lot of fond memories here.”

West Texas State represented a significant step in Perry’s pursuit of one of her passions, a nursing career. Perry, 59, came from a family of six in Haskell — 60 miles north of Abilene — where her father, Joe, was a long-time country doctor. A sister is a pharmacist.

“Although I didn’t know anything about her family at the time,” said Dr. Danna Strength, one of Perry’s nursing professors, “looking back I think maybe she felt she was carrying on a dynasty.”

Anita had transferred from Texas Tech to WT to finish her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. She was at WT for her senior year where she was among 14 students who made up the school of nursing’s first graduating class in 1974.

“She was an outstanding student, kind of quiet, but very smart and always respectful of everyone,” said Betty Henry, a nursing instructor at WT from 1972 to 1996. “She was just the type of student you would love to have. She just wanted to be a good nurse.”

She was also dating Perry, future husband, future governor and future presidential candidate. Perry, from the small community of Paint Rock near Haskell, graduated from Texas A&M in 1972. He was commissioned in the Air Force and stationed at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. He made frequent weekend trips to Canyon that year.

“I was always told he would come up on Fridays and go to the Panhandle-Plains Museum waiting for her to get out of class,” said Long. “They’re both just West Texas people.”

Not long after Perry entered the presidential race in August, reports surfaced that Anita’s background as a nurse was influential in his signing an executive order in 2007 requiring sixth-grade girls to receive a vaccine to prevent a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer. Perry’s order was later overturned by state lawmakers.

The Perry campaign has not said what role, if any, his wife played regarding the vaccine. The issue came under fire when two Republican presidential candidates, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, said the decision to vaccinate children should remain with the parents.

Now that the Perrys are in the national political spotlight, handlers are doing their best to control the glare. A spokesperson for the Perry campaign said Anita Perry was too busy for media interviews. Kathy Shipp, described as Perry’s best friend at WT, lives in Lubbock and did not return phone messages. Anita’s parents, Joe and Beunis Thigpen, now live in

College Station.

“They told us in Austin not to give out any information,” Beunis Thigpen said. “That’s it. I’m sorry.”

The New York Times last month said that Perry left no doubt his wife influenced his decision to run for president. Perry told reporters earlier this year Anita encouraged him to get out of his comfort zone.

“My wife said, ‘Yeah, being governor of Texas is a great job, but sometimes you’re called to step into the fray,’” he said.

In late September, she opened Perry’s Iowa campaign headquarters in West Des Moines. Last Thursday, while campaigning in Greenville, S.C., Anita Perry went off message with an emotional defense of her husband and the criticism the couple have received.

“It’s been a rough month,” she told a crowd at Greenville University. “We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press. We are being brutalized by our opponents and own party. So much of that is, I think, because of his faith.”

Anita Perry may have married into politics, but she was born into medicine. After earning her bachelor’s degree at WT, she got her masters in nursing at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. Her resume also includes time as a pediatric coordinator, an ICU staff nurse, area supervisor for a home health agency and a hospital director for nurses.

“She was absolutely dedicated to the profession, and still is,” said Joy Ridlehuber, a Plainview native who graduated with Perry from WT in 1974. “Her dad had a huge impact on her. She comes from a family of giving people who put a lot back into the community.”

Ridlehuber was a roommate of the future first lady. They lived together in San Antonio for two years while both were working on their master’s degrees. In 1978 and 1979, they shared the same Foxfire apartment complex in Amarillo after Anita followed up on a tip from Ridlehuber on an open nursing instructor’s position at WT. She returned to her alma mater to teach for a year.

“She was great, just a lot of fun to be around,” said Ridlehuber, who now performs medical coding in Fort Worth. “She just did things the right way. She met people easily and quickly, pretty much as she is now.”

Ridlehuber said it’s easy to see that Anita Perry is very much her own woman, with her own causes, her own ideals.

“She’s found things she believes in, and does not live in the shadows,” she said. “I think they are very interdependent individuals, yet have a lot of respect and care for one another. Certainly, they are going to hear each other on the issues. I think she is a huge strength to him.”

She has had an endowed scholarship — the Anita Thigpen Perry Nursing Excellence Scholarship — for the last 10 years at WT that provides $2,000 each to two junior nursing students. She has returned to the area on numerous occasions, including the dedication of a new nursing facility, when Canyon joined the Texas Main Street program, and a women’s forum on sexual assault.

“It feels a little bit like coming home when I come to Canyon,” she said on one of her stops. “I know firsthand what a special place it is here in Canyon.”

■ What: Western Republican Presidential Debate from Las Vegas

■ When: 7 p.m.

■ TV: CNN (cable channel 54)

■ Participants: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum