It was cowboy hats, bandanas guacamole and chips with lots of catching up as Anita McBride and Amy Zantzinger co-hosted a cocktail reception to send Sally McDonough to Texas in style.

Ms. McDonough is joining the George W. Bush Presidential Center team in Dallas.  She is best known for her role as First Lady Laura Bush’s press secretary during the second Bush administration, but she spent the last few years helping the amazing scientists and doctors at NIH get their good word out.

McDonough, who began her career with Senator John Heinz, greeted former White House colleagues and media friends at McBride’s Spring Valley home. Guests included Missy DeCamp, Skyla Freeman, Robin Sproul, Betsy Fischer, Carrie Stevenson, Robin Gradison, David Almacy, Erin O’Connor, Amy Allman Dean, Sara Culvahouse, Lyric Winik and White House Correspondents Insider, Tammy Haddad.

There were many wishing Norah O’Donnell well in her September debut as a host of  “CBS This Morning.”  O’Donnell described how she plans  to commute to work  for the first 6 months since her kids are already enrolled in a Washington school.

McDonough is getting to Dallas just in time- the George W. Bush Presidential Center opens in the spring of 2013.