It’s not every day you look up from your yoga mat and realize a former First Lady is a few feet away.
“There are all these people. All over the place, just standing around,” said middle school history teacher Caroline Gannon, who assumed they were workers.
It wasn’t until her husband pointed it out that she began to connect the dots: “Is it Secret Service? Are the Bushes on the island?” he asked.
Former First Lady Laura Bush had been practicing yoga alongside her.
“You would never have known it was her,” Gannon said.
Their connection deepened not in the studio, but at one of Boca Grande’s historic landmarks. Gannon and her husband are longtime volunteers at the Gasparilla Island Rear Range Light, where they give tours and share the lighthouse’s history. After a local magazine featured her husband’s restoration work, Gannon brought the article to show her yoga instructor. As she flipped through the pages, someone leaned over her shoulder.
“It was Laura Bush,” Gannon said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, this [article is about] my husband. Would you like to go [climb up the light house] someday?’”
Soon after, arrangements were made for a private climb.
“Her assistant took my number and texted me and said, ‘Is this a good day?’” Gannon said.
When the day arrived, “her assistant and one of her Secret Service agents all climbed.”
At the top, Gannon and her husband shared the story of the lighthouse’s restoration — how the once-vandalized structure was saved by community fundraising and volunteer dedication.
“She wanted to know how I got involved,” Gannon said. That story led back to Gannon’s mother, who had lived on Boca Grande for 25 years and helped rally support for the lighthouse’s repair. In fact, Gannon’s mother had unknowingly crossed paths with the Bush family years earlier.
After chatting with a woman at a local thrift store, her mom turned and asked, “Do you know who that was?” When Gannon shrugged, her mother revealed: “It was Laura Bush.” Gannon turned around and noticed a Secret Service agent nearby.
Since that first climb, Bush has returned to explore the island’s second lighthouse, the Port Boca Grande Lighthouse. Gannon offered the same hospitalityto her as she would to anyone else.
“If she wants to go, I think we should make it happen for her,” she said. “Though, I’m not really a star-struck person.”
What stood out most wasn’t the former first lady title, it was the personality.
“She’s very, very nice,” Gannon said. “She’s a normal person.”
As a former librarian and educator herself, Bush even asked about Gannon’s classroom.
“I told her I teach,” Gannon said, “and I think one of the first things she asked me this winter was, ‘How’s school?’”
Even former President George W. Bush made a surprise appearance at yoga one day.
“He’s actually very animated,” Gannon said. Spotting him in the Pilates room, she joked, “‘Are you going to Pilates?’ He said, ‘No, I’m going to yoga.’” When she showed him where to place his shoes, he teased back: “‘Don’t steal my shoes now.’”
Despite the Secret Service presence and the formal arrangements, Gannon still frames the encounters as an ordinary moment that just happened to include extraordinary names.
“If they just put on glasses and a hat and got in their golf cart, nobody would know who they were,” she reflected.