Gary Philllips, Chaplain
2017-2018

Iowa has recently passed legislation allowing the sale of fireworks with our borders. 

One of the most awe inspiring 4th of July pyrotechnic displays in America is the show put on at Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Here is a little trivia concerning one of our nation’s most visited landmarks.  Happy Independence Day and GOD bless America!

“As you can see from sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s model of Mount Rushmore (above left), the carving crew made a few concessions during the monument’s 14-year construction. Time, money, and areas of impenetrable rock prohibited the team from finishing the full head-to-waist sculptures Borglum had planned—Lincoln never even got ears. Still more trouble came when weak rock quality forced the presidents’ relocation to a different part of the rock face than originally planned, leaving no room for what would have been Lincoln’s neighbor and Borglum’s pièce de résistance: a monstrous 80-by-120-foot tablet in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase, inscribed with the nine most important moments from 1776 to 1906 (that is, from Washington to Roosevelt). Some things are better left uncarved.”

Reprinted from Reader’s Digest 7/8/2017