JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

H. Ross Perot, the feisty billionaire who made waves as a U.S. presidential
candidate in the 1990s, will help a growing Texas Tech center celebrate a
milestone.
Perot to lead local center's celebration

By Marlena Hartz | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

*Monday, May 18, 2009*
Story last updated at 5/18/2009 - 11:46 pm

H. Ross Perot, the feisty billionaire who made waves as a U.S. presidential
candidate in the 1990s, will help a growing Texas Tech center celebrate a
milestone.

Perot, 78, will be the keynote speaker at The Vietnam Center and Archive
20th Anniversary Ball in Lubbock later this month.

The native Texan ran for president as an independent in 1992 and 1996. His
role as an advocate of Vietnam veterans and war prisoners is less known, but
equally impressive, said Steve Maxner, the director of The Vietnam Center.

Perot was appointed in 1969 to a Nixon administration committee developed to
improve treatment of U.S. war prisoners. He continued to advocate on behalf
on POWs in Hanoi, Vietnam, until they were released at the end of the war in
1972.

"More recently, he's been spending a lot of time and effort - and probably
money - to help severely wounded soldiers (who fought) in Afghanistan and
Iraq," said James Reckner, the founding director of the center.

In the past two decades, Tech's Vietnam Center and Archive has moved beyond
its humble beginnings.

Reckner, a Vietnam veteran who is now retired, founded the center in 1989
after he spoke with 15 or so fellow veterans about how they could positively
cope with their war-time experiences. They met on the third floor of the
Tech library. The archive began when a Slaton mother donated a bundle of
letters her son wrote while he was at war.

The center is now the largest reserve of Vietnam-related materials outside
of Washington, D.C., with more than 20 million pages of documents. It has
formed student-exchange partnerships with Vietnamese universities, aided in
the search for still missing U.S. soldiers and drawn diplomats to Lubbock.

"It's helped us establish a wonderful relationship with the country of
Vietnam," said Tech President Guy Bailey.

"That center's a real jewel," he said.

Proceeds from the ball will be used to cover the center's expenses and
create scholarships, Maxner said.