A big billboard that once towered over a Williamson County neighborhood was taken down Tuesday.

In the fall of 1965, as the weeds of political opposition threatened to strangle Lady Bird Johnson's Highway Beautification Act in Congress, her husband issued a stern warning.

"You know I love that woman and she wants that Highway Beautification Act," President Johnson told staff and Cabinet members. "By God, we're going to get it for her."

Lady Bird Johnson, a force for conservation as well as a former first lady passed away last week. Some may think that her efforts to curb billboards and plant wildflowers were somehow prissy or lightweight, but those that think that clearly don't understand the economic, aesthetic and environmental necessity of protecting the American landscape.

At one in the morning on Oct. 8, 1965, the House of Representatives finally voted on the Highway Beautification Act — “Lady Bird’s bill,” as Representative Bob Dole, one of the leaders of the opposition, patronizingly called it. The representatives were supposed to have been at the White House six hours earlier for a “Salute to Congress” dinner, and the gallery was filled with hungry, impatient spouses who had watched their evening plans drown in the tumult on the House floor.

Ilene Perkett (last week's Beacon) speaks to my heart. Let's hear it for Scenic Texas highways! Let's protect the open spaces, vistas of oaks and cedar and rocks, with Packsaddle Mountain, the river, or Round Mountain as a backdrop. These vistas are accessible to everyone from our public roads. Year-round, Highway 71 is a ribbon of wildflowers. It was the project of the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, to remove unsightly billboards, fence off acres of junked cars, and sow native seeds in our public places. That project has been the pride of Texas, but it is endangered.