COTULLA, Texas (AP) - A statue of Lyndon Baines Johnson holding a book has been unveiled at a South Texas school where the future president taught more than 30 years before reaching the White House.

LBJ's daughter, Luci Baines Johnson, was on hand Saturday at Wellhausen School in Cotulla (kuh-TOO'-luh), 80 miles (128.74 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio.

The San Antonio Express-News reports more than 500 people attended the unveiling by sculptor Armanda Hinojosa at the school where LBJ taught and was a coach and principal in 1928-29.

Cotulla Mayor Javier Garcia says Johnson believed education was the way to defeat poverty, segregation and any roadblock you'd meet in life.

Johnson became president after John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.

LBJ died in 1973.

Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com

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