 You know this gentleman? Hi. Hi, I'm just on my tip. And Mrs. Angelia Weaver. Hello. Her dream was to meet you, Mr. President, because she has a generation for you. So this is fulfilling her dream today. And her mother, Mrs. Weaver, is also Angelia. And her husband, James Weaver. Hello. You're from Arkansas, from Greenwood, Arkansas. You live on a farm. Well, why don't we get you all in here? Good, you all take the picture. That's Arkansas. We've got some more here. Well, we'll get a drink of tea here. Well, thank you very much. You've got to bring it back. Well, I'm going to sleep. You want to come over by the crevice? Yes, Angelia. Let me put these on and we'll have a picture. There you go. Very good. Don't you want to be on the other side? You're right there. You have to smile. Mr. Secretary, right here. Thanks. Thank you. Wait one second. This is a jar with that seal in its grave. And inside the jar are jelly beans. Jelly beans. This is a pin with the crest. This is an angel crest. And this is like 30. Like very much. That's great. I bet he'd like a hundred games for you. Yes, great. Thank you. Thank you for my presence. She's worried that she didn't get to bring you any of these. Well, we'll all go into the party now and have some fun next door, okay? Great. Goodbye. I shall be enjoying it. Thank you. Thanks so much. Okay, that's one good one. It's easy to say goodbye to someone who has served so faithfully for almost seven years. First as head of public liaison here at the White House. And since 1983 as secretary of transportation, you've helped American transportation make tremendous strides in safety, efficiency, and competitiveness during your tenure. As a result of four and a half years of your boundless energy and tireless advocacy of safety, the skies, the seas, the railways, and the highways of this nation are safer than ever. Your leadership in encouraging Americans to use safety belts and refrain from drinking and driving and help save countless lives and prevent thousands of tripling injuries. You've led the way in our national campaign against drug and alcohol abuse. The Department of Transportation is the first civilian government agency to implement a random drug testing program. During a time when travel has never been safer, you have helped increase competition in industries that were traditionally stifled by government regulation. Elizabeth, under your stewardship, the Department of Transportation is shown tremendous leadership in privatization and federalism. The sale of Conrail, which reduced the deficit by almost $2 billion, was the largest initial industrial public offering in the United States history. You also transferred Washington, National, and Dulles airports to a regional authority and something that's been tried since 1949, unsuccessful. In closing, I want to repeat something I said a few months ago when you presented me with a check for nearly $2 billion for the sale of Conrail. I take full credit for appointing one of the best secretaries of transportation ever. I miss you at the cabinet table. I want to express my gratitude and friendship as well as my best wishes for the future. Bless you. Well, Mr. President, first of all, let me just say how much I appreciate those beautiful words that you have just spoken. I will cherish them always as I will cherish what is in this beautiful box. I'm sure, and I think back over the almost seven years, as you said, the opportunity that you've given me, the high privilege of serving first as your assistant for public liaison here at the White House where we sat around this table and debated many issues, and then, of course, as your secretary of transportation for almost five years. Do you realize I've served longer in this position than any other secretary? And it's hard to believe that that's because I loved it. I have loved it. And we've had wonderful, challenging, tough issues to deal with and it's been my privilege to be able to serve in this position. And certainly, I have the highest esteem and affection for you and for Nancy and all that you have done for this country and will continue to do. And I just hope that in some small way I can continue to be of service. And, of course, as I look to the future, I'm sort of putting down one cause at DOT and taking up another and to have the privilege of participating in the democratic process of selecting the next leader of the free world is no small responsibility. And I look forward to the opportunity to be involved. And I think above all, our goal is to make certain that we retain the White House, Mr. President. My democratic friends in the audience are smiling. And certainly we want to continue your wise policies in the future. And so I just look forward to being a part of that process. But let me just say that among the many things that the First Lady has accomplished is to go to war on drug abuse and to make such a contribution in this area. And that's been one of the things at the department that has been a privilege for us to be involved in. As you mentioned, we were the first civilian department to undertake random drug testing as a part of our overall safety initiatives. And the courts have just upheld us, Mr. President. That's the good news. So we're making progress down that path. But when I came to the department, I felt there was no way that I could make a difference for people better than undertaking the safety initiatives. And we've done that across all modes. We've had the three safest years in the air. We've had the two safest on our highways and the best year on our railroads last year. And obviously as we look to the future, deregulation has been such a tremendous benefit in the air for the traveling public. We have people flying who never thought they'd have the means to fly. And with that has come an enormous growth in the system. And one of our challenges has been to stay ahead of that growth curve. And that's going to be a continuing challenge for my successor and probably successors on down the road to be very much on top of that issue. But certainly it's been a privilege to have a chance to work with what you have done, your leadership on age 21. We found that the fatalities have dropped about 13% among teenagers as all but one state have gone to the minimum 21 drinking age. And these are just a few of the many initiatives that we have enjoyed participating in. Privatization has been a wonderful one in terms of being able to transfer out of the federal government certain functions that can be, we think, performed more efficiently and at less cost in the private sector. We have sold three railroads, Mr. President. Conrail, you're most familiar with. That was a tough one. And I think I'd just like to conclude by mentioning privatization of space because that was a tough issue, but maybe it has in terms of the future as far reaching ramifications as anything this team and many of them are here today has had the privilege of working on because it's going to help to keep us on the cutting edge of space. We're presiding over the development of a fledgling new private sector space transportation industry and already they have 20 reservations to launch to compete against the French area and the Russians, the Chinese and to be globally competitive in a new field and that happened because we were able to to move this particular function off the shuttle and into the private sector where it can be performed at less cost. So again, I thank you so much for the privilege of working on these and other initiatives and with a great team of people and I will certainly cherish the memories it pulls at the heartstrings today. No question about that because we've been a real family. But I want to introduce just a few special guests, if I may. Your Adopt-A-School program has been one that's been particularly meaningful to us at the Department of Transportation. Princess Whitfield is the principal of Hine Junior High. She is a student at Hine and she just represents all the fine young people who have benefited hopefully from our tutors. She has a 4.0 academic average. Before our freight railroad there was a wonderful dinner to celebrate and the gift that I was given was a scholarship for a Hine Junior High School student to go to college and we're really excited about that to study economics and I understand that's been repeated a second time, Princess. So it looks like that may be a permanent thing. Let's hope so. We're arping economics as a pilot this year to see what it feels like. Wonderful. Very good. And then I want to introduce to you Angelia Weaver who is from Arkansas. Angelia is a very special guest of mine today and her dream was to meet President Reagan who she admires very greatly and Angelia just turn and let folks say hello to you. Parents James and Angelia Weaver are here today and also Carolyn Wagner. Carolyn please come up, her husband Bill. Carolyn started the program to fulfill a dream where a young person who has a dream she makes sure it's fulfilled and I was fortunate enough to meet them in Arkansas and they're very special guests today and I just like to say to my mother I'm so pleased that you're here mother I'm John Johnson from Salisbury and my nephew John and all my dear and special friends who are gathered from different phases of my life. I love you all and thanks for everything. Had one aspiration in common the desire for freedom which today holds a chairman and American people together in partnership and in friendship. Mr. President what is most clearly etched in our minds is this the unity of the alliance cannot be preserved without close unity with the United States of America. In an alliance ladies and gentlemen if we continue along this path I need not fear for the future of our two nations and peoples. Thank you in what is now the United States. Since that time German Americans have helped forge the ideals and dreams that have built our nation. It was a German American. John Peter's defense was that he had printed the truth. He won and the principle he established lives to this day that the press can and must be free to tell the truth. He found his first job after graduating from the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Berlin. No project could go forward he wrote without in his words an army of counselors was named John Robley and he designed and with his son built It is deep and fertile. It's helped nourish and cultivate our national heritage our national accomplishments and our national has been built. That's why our people have made the sacrifices to build and maintain our military strength in the face of the missiles and armies of the Warsaw hat. In the last six and a half years we stood firmly together and now as a result America made reduction proposals were not serious. All the Soviets would never agree to act to arms reductions certainly not the zero option for US and Soviet intermediate range ground launch nuclear weapons. The agreement toward which America and the Soviets are now moving is not happening because we America, Germany and our allies have been weak and it is as you know nothing short of the story. Never before has an agreement actually abolished from the general secretary Gorbachev to sign this agreement and I look forward to that day. None of us should ever forget however that all that we've achieved for world peace could never have happened without the strong alliance and friendship between the United States for the first time ever to extend the protection of federal civil rights laws to purely private contracts. Those who've been distorting his record have said over and over he's going to turn back the clock to federal civil rights. It's amazing they can find a room big enough for them to get in front of the cameras their noses must be soldiering and demeaning the judicial selection process. I hope we haven't come to a time when good men and women are afraid to accept nominations to the bench for fear. I hope that before you leave Washington all of you'll take time to let your senators know that you want to see Robert Ford. I'll bet you right now she's wondering if I put some sun block on my Facebook. I did. She can't hear me. Well now to get back to the matter at hand and that means there's a proclamation for me to sign. And appreciation for signing the proclamation which other German Americans ever