WHEREAS, With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton’s army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank; and

WHEREAS, President Obama came from a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, where hard work and education were the means of getting ahead, and where the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others; and

WHEREAS, President Obama obtained his early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii and spent two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, inclusive, which played a major role in determining his future. He made his first political speech there on February 18, 1981, as part of a movement to persuade the Occidental Board of Trustees to divest the college of its investments in South Africa; and

WHEREAS, After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants; and

WHEREAS, He received a B.A. in 1983 from Columbia University, New York City and worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois. He later studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received his J.D. in 1991. Upon graduation from Harvard Law School, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and continue his community service; and

WHEREAS, President Obama became a State Senator from Illinois from 1997 to 2004, inclusive, and was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 2004, and served from January 3, 2005, to November 16, 2008, inclusive. He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008. After being reelected in 2012, President Obama is currently serving his second and final term, which will end on January 20, 2017; completed his second and final term on January 20, 2017; and

WHEREAS, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia and Sasha; and

WHEREAS, His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others; and

WHEREAS, In recognition of President Barack Hussein Obama’s more that than two decades of dedicated public service to the citizens of the United States and the State of California, it is fitting to designate a portion of State Highway Route 134 in his honor; now, therefore, be it