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Artifacts of Bush Presidency Displayed in New Exhibit

The bullhorn President George W. Bush used to speak to rescue workers three days after the Sept. 11 attacks and the pistol taken from Saddam Hussein when he was captured in Iraq two years later are among the artifacts featured in a new exhibit opening Saturday at a museum in Dallas.

The collection at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University amounts to a preview of what will become the Bush presidential library center on the campus. Groundbreaking for the center is scheduled for next month, and the facility is set to open in 2013, The Dallas Morning News reports. Bush's memoir, "Decision Points," is scheduled to be published in November.

Other items in the exhibit, "Breaking New Ground: Presenting the George W. Bush Presidential Center," include handwritten notes Bush made as he prepared to issue a statement in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the sweatshirt he wore a few weeks later at Yankee Stadium for his ceremonial first pitch in the 2001 World Series.

Among the lighter artifacts are sapphire and diamond jewelry given to Laura Bush as a gift from Saudi Arabia, painted-wood White House Easter eggs, a bronze football given to Bush from the University of Texas 2005 championship team and Air Force One dog bowls bedecked with the presidential seal.....

Read entire article at AOL News