Rains and high water don’t dampen spirits at Johnson family wedding

“Man proposes and God disposes.”

So says wise Lynda Johnson Robb. The daughter of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson played another familial role last weekend as mother of the bride. Jennifer Robb, a math teacher and coach — also daughter of former U.S. Sen. Charles Robb — married Josh Glazer, who works in the national security division of the Office of Management and Budget.

The May 23 celebration at the LBJ Ranch on the Pedernales River was not without drama.

“We planned everything so well,” Lynda Johnson Robb said. “We gave out fans with the bride and groom’s pictures on them. We had a cake on a stump that had their name carved on it. On the tables, we had cigar boxes decorated with love poems and pieces of oral history. All kinds of wonderful things for people to look at when they had their Salt Lick meal.”

After Lady Bird Johnson’s death, National Park Service officials agreed that the family could return to their cherished ranch for weddings, baptisms and funerals. Naturally, wildflowers adorned the guests and tables. White chairs dotted the lawn.

“Then the rains came,” Robb said. “So we had the wedding service in the airplane hangar, which has been converted into a visitors center. Everyone stood, and they were married right in front of Lyndon’s civil rights legacy exhibit in the background.”

The youngest Johnson descendants joined the wedding party. Many of the women wore blue bridesmaid’s dresses in the current fashion that encourages personal diversity (and re-use).

“We just pretended we were in the most beautiful church in the world,” Robb said. “The minister in his prepared notes had something to say about water not drowning things out. We had a tent for insurance for the barbecue and the dance floor. After that, we went out, the bride and groom danced, then others danced. And the rain came down and down and down. Everything was getting wet in the tent. Someone said the water on the dance floor was over their shoes. We all danced and pretended it was just what we had imagined.”

The Park Service interrupted the wet festivities to announce that the Pedernales River was up to 14 feet. At 16 feet, they wouldn’t be able to get out. Robb announced that the band would play “Auld Lang Syne” as guests boarded buses.

The very core of the wedding party stayed at Sunset House — which the grandchildren own — intending to run a Memorial Day race. But they couldn’t get out for that. The ranch suffered minor damages such as downed tree limbs.

Meanwhile, the buses were detoured near Dripping Springs.

“Nobody got hurt,” Robb said. “Everybody got back to Austin. All those plans that mothers make, all those ideas … you’d cry, but we laughed instead.”

Ovation Awards

Drummers drew guests into the dreamily decorated hall. Then the paired emcees kept the audience at the Hyatt Regency Austin on their toes, while the hotel’s ambitious staff served Asian-spiced dinners, including a winning vegetarian option. (Word to the wise: The vegetarian plate is often the superior choice at big galas.)

Yet folks were here for the Ovation Awards, given out by the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce. The top honor, recognizing Lifetime Achievement, went to William Wang, founder and CEO of Vizio. Silicon Labs picked up the Business of the Year laurels, while Global Entrepreneur went to Jialiang Wang.

Beloved food truck Chi’Lantro nabbed the Emerging Business Award, and the Asia Foundation snagged the honors for Community Group. Was pleased that Jamie Amelio, profiled in these pages and founder of Caring for Cambodia, was selected as Community Leader. Among the other winners: Rashed Islam, Sung Je Lee and three Economic Engine businesses: Ruvati USA, Whorton Insurance and Ticket City. What a great event! It didn’t need the unrelated entertainment.

Molly Awards

It’s not really about the keynote speaker. Even so, guests for the Molly Awards, which benefit the Texas Observer, were riveted by the immigration speech from Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas. It’s also not about the celebrity emcee, this year actor and activist Kathleen Turner, who has played awards namesake Molly Ivins.

It’s not even about the Bernard Rappaport Philanthropy Award, which went to Don Carleton and the Briscoe Center for American History, the repository for the statewide magazine’s archives. No, the annual awards at the Four Seasons Hotel are always about the astounding, nonpartisan investigative journalism recognized and rewarded at the entertaining event.

Esther Kaplan, editor of the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, won for “Losing Sparta,” which appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and followed the closing of a perfectly good factory in that Tennessee town. Honorable Mention went to BuzzFeed’s Alex Campbell for “Battered, Bereaved & Behind Bars,” covering women who are given long prison systems for not protecting their offspring, even as they themselves are battered; and to the Chicago Tribune’s Duaa Eldeib, David Jackson and Gary Marx for their five-part series, “Harsh Treatment,” on the abuse of minors in Illinois state institutions.