SUGAR LAND, Texas – A local dance instructor is remembering a precious moment with President George H.W. Bush when she and her dance group performed for the 41st president.
One of her little dancers got presidential recognition captured in a photo that speaks a thousand words.
"It's one of those things that is imprinted in you forever, and we're just blessed to have a photo of it, but the memory's in our heart," said Cookie Joe, owner of Cookie Joe's Dancin' Studio in Sugar Land.
This photo went national. Dancers at Cookie Joe's Dancin' Studio had the honor of performing for Bush in 1990.
"The event was after the economic summit," Joe said. "They wanted to bring in multiple cultural programming. Diversity was a key word at that time."
Joe's Fortune Cookies dance group got the chance to be a part of a show for the president. No doubt, security was tight.
"We're talking about 3-year-olds walking through metal detectors and being frisked," Joe said. "We were told explicitly, 'Do not ever approach the President.' All the security and all the Secret Service (agents) wore very dark glasses, headphones, little wires in the ear. They were emphatic, 'Do not approach the president, even if he talks to you. You do not approach the president.'"
However, Bush, a former U.N. ambassador and chief liaison officer in China, could not help but make his own plan.
"We're in the middle of the performance and the [Fortune Cookies'] show is over, and they left all the dancers on stage when the president entered the stage. He bends over and looks at one of our little ones, which is Kristen, and goes like this to her [gesturing her to come to him] ... What do you do when the president says, 'Come here?' And you've been told by all the people with guns, saying, 'Don't approach the president.' So I'm looking at the child; I'm looking at the president; I'm looking at the Secret Service, and I'm dancing, and the Secret Service just goes -- giving us the OK nod."
Then, little Kristen Wu of Houston got her "moment with Mr. President," featured in the Houston Chronicle. Wu's family had a signed picture of Bush holding up Kristen, smiling. She was the only dancer in her group who got to interact with the president.
"It was such a great moment, and it was joyful, and it was so candid," Joe said.
Joe's team beamed with pride.
"Then the picture went national. Kristen was at the dentist and she was probably 5 years old, and it's all over her dentist's office, and they all want her autograph and she turns to her mom, Linda, and says, 'Oh, mom. Thanks for 'born-ing' me!'" Joe recalled.
Joe's talents in teaching, dancing and philanthropy also led her troupe to perform at the Star of Hope in Houston, which earned her a Points of Light Award -- a presidential honor from Bush 41. Joe started the company 43 years ago at the age of 14 with her father. Her father, a Chinese immigrant, taught her American patriotism, and was her "Believer in Dreams," according to Joe.
"I wanted to be a more loving, gentler [teacher]. I wanted to teach the whole child -- not just great dancers and performers, but also help [students] be more confident and people of grace and compassion," Joe said.
Those values were embodied by her father and also "America's Grandfather," the president.
"Whenever you saw what he did, whenever he found people in need, whether it was the Hurricane Katrina victims or the homeless -- he had a heart of giving and serving and compassion, not just for the big picture ... but for the individual ... the small people," Joe said.
That's true of even the smallest people, including the little Chinese-American Fortune Cookie dancer who made friends with the 41st president of the United States.
"No matter how great we are, we can always serve and we can always do something for the least of these," Joe said.
KPRC also spoke with Linda Wu, Kristen's mother. Wu said Kristen is recently a mother of her own. Kristen, who is now grown and living in Chicago, is welcoming baby Ella Rose into the world.