The Baseline-Meridian Chapter, United States Daughters of 1812, was unable to present its Star-Spangled Banner program to students at Bobby Barrett Elementary School in Mount Ida for a second year due to COVID precautions. -19.
Instead, chapter president Pat McLemore and member Mary Wilmuth presented the school with coloring books provided by the Arkansas secretary of state.
Star-Spangled Banner Day, commemorated on September 14, recognizes the story of the poem that became the national anthem. The lyrics are from “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, a poem written on September 14, 1814 by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Baltimore Harbor during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.
“Key was inspired by the great American flag, The Star-Spangled Banner, which flies triumphantly over the fort during the American victory,” a press release read. “The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith. Set to Key’s poem and renamed ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, it quickly became a well-known American patriotic song.”
“The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover. “The original 15-star flag that inspired Key to write the poem is among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC,” the statement read.
USD Chapter 1812 adopted the Montgomery County School five years ago and provides dictionaries to every third-grade student as part of the Dictionary Project.
“Flags were provided to the school and the chapter also encourages student patriotism by delivering homemade Christmas cards, Valentine’s Day cards, etc., to veterans at the VA Hospital in North Little Rock “, reads the press release.
The chapter meets four times a year alternating between Little Rock and Hot Springs Village. For more information on the company’s business, email McLemore at [email protected]
The students were tasked with drawing their interpretation of The Star-Spangled Banner. – Photo submitted