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Back in time for Presidents’ Day

Floyd County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Kuhn and Immaculate Conception sixth grade student, Jackson Houdek, flip the paper on the easel to help set the scene. Attendees of the Floyd County President’s Day presentation were transported back in time, to 1973. This was the year Senator Ralph McCartney spoke to the Iowa Legislature marking the 164th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Press photo by Amie Johansen
Floyd County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Kuhn and Immaculate Conception sixth grade student, Jackson Houdek, flip the paper on the easel to help set the scene. Attendees of the Floyd County President’s Day presentation were transported back in time, to 1973. This was the year Senator Ralph McCartney spoke to the Iowa Legislature marking the 164th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Press photo by Amie Johansen

By Amie Johansen

amie@charlescitypress.com

The magistrate courtroom was filled with students from Charles City High School, Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock middle school and Immaculate Conception elementary school. The gathering was for a President’s Day observance presentation.

Floyd County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mark Kuhn and Floyd County Treasurer Frank Rottinghaus welcomed the students and introduced Black Hawk County Auditor and Iowa State Association of Counties Historian Grant Veeder.

Veeder began by acknowledging the positions in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech and President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation hung in the courthouse.

“The Emancipation Proclamation is downstairs next to Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” Veeder said. “They are not likely companions.”

Veeder describes King’s speech as motivational and exciting. His description of the Proclamation is less kind.

“It’s pretty boring and it doesn’t even free all the slaves,” Veeder said. He ventured that in reading the Proclamation one could be mistaken Lincoln for a “semi-emancipator” or “mediocre emancipator” instead of the “great emancipator.” The remainder of Veeder’’s speech described Lincoln’s actions through history leading up to the creation of the 13th Amendment.

“That’s why the Proclamation is so boring,” Veeder said. “(Lincoln) was dotting all of his constitutional i’s and crossing the constitutional t’s.”

Following Veeder’s presentation, a handful of students from the visiting schools took turns reading the statements Senator Ralph McCartney spoke to the Iowa Legislature in 1973 marking the 164th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

President’s Day Observance was concluded when two pieces of art were added to the permanent display on the second floor of the Floyd County Courthouse. Joining King’s speech and the Emancipation Proclamation was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung by RRMR eighth grade student Kyra Nobbs. The piece of artwork, was hung and created by Charles City High School student Sara Martin. Guests of the presentation were invited to enjoy cake and milk.

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