President Barack Obama, on his first foray into Texas as president today, will face a unique mixture of warm, fuzzy bipartisanship and bitter protest at Texas A&M University.

Former President George H.W. Bush will host Obama at a forum on volunteerism marking the 20th anniversary of Bush's Points of Light effort. Meanwhile, conservative activists from around the state, including members of the Tea Party movement that disrupted congressional town hall meetings this summer, plan to converge on campus to voice their displeasure with various Obama policies.

"People are fed up with an overreaching government," said Paul Reiger, chairman of the Brazos County Republican Party, which is coordinating the protest this afternoon near the auditorium where the 41st and 44th presidents will make their first joint appearance since Obama's inauguration. "If we don't stand ground at the most conservative major university in the country, we're not going to stand our ground anywhere."

This will be Obama's first visit to Texas since he left San Antonio on March 5, 2008, after his losses in the Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries. Obama wrote off Texas entirely in the fall general election and lost the state badly to Republican John McCain.

"The president does have support here," said Hector Nieto, spokesman for Obama's ongoing campaign operation in Texas, Organizing for America. "It's a myth that there are no voters who support the president here in Texas."

He called the protest "disrespectful to the event."

"It's unfortunate that these far-right-wing extremists would choose a nonpartisan event about volunteerism as their venue for protest. This isn't our event. This is President Bush's event," Nieto said.

The potential for ugliness prompted Bush to pen an open letter to "fellow members of the Texas A&M family" in the local newspaper, not so subtly urging decorum as the "global spotlight" shines on the campus.

Michelle Nunn, CEO of Bush's Points of Light Institute, shrugged off the protest.

"At this time of great divide, it is important both symbolically and practically to demonstrate how Americans can come together to solve problems," she said.