DAR Constitution Day program set for Monday
Published 6:00 am Saturday, September 16, 2023
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Winchester and Clark County will celebrate the nation’s governing document on Monday.
The Hart Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) will conduct its annual Constitution Commemoration Day Program starting at 4:30 p.m.
The program will take place in the Fiscal Courtroom of the Clark County Courthouse.
It will feature speakers such as Clark County Judge-Executive Les Yates, Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed, State Rep. Ryan Dotson and State Sen. Greg Elkins.
Constitution Day was celebrated in Iowa public schools as far back as 1911. Various civic organizations called for its creation over the ensuing decades.
Olga T. Webster of Louisville, Ohio, petitioned her local government to celebrate the holiday in 1952, which it did. In 1953, the state of Ohio declared Sept. 17 as Constitution Day.
Federal recognition of the holiday has its beginnings when the DAR petitioned the U.S. Congress to set aside Sept. 17-23 for the observance of Constituion Week. Congress approved a resolution doing so and it was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Aug. 2, 1956.
Sept. 17 became a federally recognized holiday in 2004. As part of the legislation that created the holiday, all publicly funded educational institutions and all federal agencies must provide educational programming on the history of the Constitution.
The DAR aims to hold true to the original purpose of the celebration and states there are three points to doing so:
• Emphasizing citizens’ responsibilities for protecting and defending the Constitution.
• Informing people that the Constitution is the basis for America’s great heritage and the foundation for the nation’s way of life.
• Encouraging the study of the historical events which led to the framing of the Constitution in September 1787.