Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Look at Texas with me just for a second. That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas.

Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You might get it maybe after a second or two, but who else would? And even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?

In every man, woman and child on this little rock the Good Lord put us on, there is a person who wishes just once he could be a real live Texan and get up on a horse or ride in a pickup. There is some bit of Texas in everyone. Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow...so you're from Iowa? Cool, tell me about it?"

Do you know why? Because there's no place like Texas.

Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed instead to fight and die for the cause of freedom.

We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and James Bowie and Crockett and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to cross it and be heroes.

John Wayne paid to do the movie himself. That is the Spirit of Texas.

Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Ana at San Jacinto. Texas is Juneteenth and Texas Independence Day. Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest. And the Sabine National Forest. Texas is breathtaking mountains in the Big Bend. Texas is the unparalleled beauty of bluebonnet fields in the Texas Hill Country.

Texas is the beautiful, warm beaches of the Gulf Coast of South Texas and Texas is the shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.

Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork and Toledo Bend Lake. Texas is Mexican food like nowhere else, not even Mexico. Texas is the Fort Worth Stockyards, Bass Hall, and the Astrodome. Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie Nelson, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Tex Ritter, George Jones, Texas Ruby, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Landry, Darrell Royal, ZZ Top, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, Nolan Ryan, Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey, Sam Rayburn, George Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush.

Texas is great companies like Dell Computer, Texas Instruments and Compaq. Texas is NASA.

Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops. Texas is skies blackened with doves, and fields full of deer. Texas is a place where cities shut down to watch the local High School Football game on Friday nights and for the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, and NIOSA River Parade in San Antonio.

Texas is ocean beaches, deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies, and modern cities. If it isn't in Texas, you don't need it. No one does anything bigger or better than it's done in Texas.

By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, California, or Maine and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17 feet. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview or Shelbyville High in Shelbyville at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at the same height - 20 feet.

Do you know why?

Because we place being a Texan as high as being an American down here. (it is the only state that was a republic before it became a state, that is the reason I was taught).