'Bringing us together': The Ann Richards Legacy Project releases new book 'The One Ann Only.'

If you spent much time driving through downtown Austin last year, you surely saw some of the dozens of ‘Ann Banners’ on display. A project of the Ann Richards Legacy Project, that collection of banners marked the 30 year anniversary of the late governor’s inauguration by displaying photos of Richards along with many of her most famous and popular quotes.

The banner project started as a sort of pandemic-era compromise, as Covid-19 made large gatherings and celebrations a difficult prospect. “Folks who wanted to gather for the governor’s 30th anniversary of her inauguration couldn’t do it because no one was meeting in public and in person,” says Margaret Justus, the founder of the Ann Richards Legacy Project. “I had been talking about doing things to honor Governor Richards for a while, and the Downtown Austin Alliance Foundation reached out and they said, ‘Let’s collaborate on something.’”

Nearly 100 Ann Banners went up in Austin last March (and later in five other major Texas cities). Philanthropists Lynne Dobson and Greg Wooldridge were key to getting those banners on display across Texas, and, Justus recalls, “They said, ‘Let’s don’t stop there. Why don’t we… create a book about Ann’s one-liners and put it together as a project for the Legacy Project?’ And so they graciously sponsored the book and helped [assemble it], because they have journalism backgrounds. And of course Lynne’s a former photojournalist with the Austin American-Statesman [and] Greg’s a former newspaper editor. And so together the three or us collaborated and created the book.”

That book – The One Ann Only – is set for release next month. Justus says the trio tried to find photos for The One Ann Only that hadn’t been widely seen before.

“What we really were striving for was not just a lot of head-and-shoulders shots,” she says. “But shots that were rare, that folks hadn’t seen. In fact, the book features nearly 80 photos by 33 different photographers, including some like Annie Leibovitz, Ave Bonar, and Kirk Tuck and some others. But it also features historical photos… from her private papers, which are held at the Dolph Briscoe Center here at UT.”

Read more: https://www.kut.org/life-arts/2022-06-13/bringing-us-together-the-ann-richards-legacy-project-releases-new-book-the-one-ann-only