Mayor Betsy Price has been named America’s Most Bike-Crazy Mayor. I cannot dispute that title. When her child was small, Betsy pedaled him around in a trailer. She has ridden RAGBRAI twice, and the Wichita Falls August center ride, Hotter’N Hell, a sizzling seven times. The popular three-term Republican mayor, who ran unopposed in her last election, has brought her love of cycling to the Mayor’s office. She holds rolling town meetings every Wednesday evening, and spearheads the ‘Tour de Fort Worth’: 21 days of cycling that runs concurrent with the Tour de France.

Her cycling interest is just one component of a governing strategy that prioritizes health as the key to a successful community. Her initiatives for Fit Worth, Walk Worth and Bike Worth are all centered on getting people to move. Mayor Price is is a vivacious, engaging woman with a Texas-size smile and personality. We met at a Bluebonnet neighborhood gathering to promote Fort Worth’s Blue Zone Project. She arrived in tight jeans, cowboy boots, a bright red blouse and dangling silver chains and told the small but enthusiastic gathering, “It’s not about being thin; it’s about being healthy. This is not a nanny state program; this is a way to make it easier for us all to be healthy.”

After she spoke, Mayor Price threaded through the crowd. She returned to ask me more details of my trip. I wished I lived in Fort Worth, so I could vote for her. But I’m pretty sure she’s got the job as long as she wants it.

How will we live tomorrow?

“Much better than we do now. We are moving to be the healthiest, best educated, most economically sound city in our nation. Healthy people are outside. They know their neighbors; they’re more involved in their community’ they promote security.”