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GREENSBORO - President George W. Bush made a special trip to Greensboro to recognize volunteers of several kinds.

As soon as Bush stepped off the plane Tuesday morning at Piedmont Triad International Airport, he handed the President's Volunteer Service Award to Donna Hudson Turner of High Point for her 25,000 logged hours of service with Hospice of the Piedmont.

"I've always been a fan of George Bush," Turner, 76, said of her impressions of the president, who will finish his second term in January. "But he was so personable and so caring."

Then, Bush moved on to recognize his own successes in a program he announced in 2003 to link children of prisoners with mentors.

That included a midday visit to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Greensboro for a short roundtable discussion with a few mentors and children, along with program directors.

Chuck Hodierne, executive director of Youth Focus, which oversees the local Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter, said the president was "very nice and charming."

"He made the analogy that we all have to play the hand we're dealt with, and maybe some people get a better hand dealt to them than others, and you have to make the best of it," Hodierne said.

Efforts to reach mentors who participated in the roundtable were unsuccessful.

His program, Mentoring Children of Prisoners, was announced in his 2003 State of the Union address. It is intender to steer at-risk children away from harmful choices and life decisions.

"It takes some time, it takes a little bit of extra love, but by helping a child, you can really help the country," Bush said.

A national goal to link more than 100,000 children with prisoners by the end of this year was reached, along with Greensboro's goal of joining 120 children with mentors - 147 are now linked in the city.

"He was aware of that, and I think that's maybe one of the reasons that we were selected for the visit," Hodierne said of Bush.

The president was in Greensboro for about two hours, from about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, during the time when much of the daytime work force has lunch.

As the motorcade passed along Summit and Battleground avenues and onto Bryan Boulevard, law enforcement kept traffic stopped on cross-streets. Small groups of people gathered in spots to see the motorcade, which included more than a dozen vehicles for the president, Secret Service agents and local emergency personnel.

"It was impressive seeing all that," said Jimmy Fox, assistant manager of Duron Paints & Wallcoverings, two doors down from the roundtable location on Summit Avenue.

Officials from the motorcade told him that his store had to close for two hours while Bush held his meeting nearby.

"It's kind of hard to stimulate the economy when you're closed," Fox said, adding that the visit caused customers to go to other stores for their paint needs and calling it an inconvenience in a traditionally slow time of year for business.

"They used our parking lot as their command center," he said. "That was exciting, other than not being able to run the business."

Fox also spoke about the necessity of the visit, a makeup date for a canceled visit in October as the president stayed in Washington while the country's financial crisis intensified.

"That's a whole lot of taxpayers dollars being spent on jet fuel," Fox said. "He's a lame duck, but there's a lot more important things going on than pressing the flesh."

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com