Roosevelt Marks 200 Years of Rockets’ Red Glare

Members of the Roosevelt High School band perform at a tribute to the bicentennial of the Star Spangled Banner.

Oh say, did you see that Roosevelt High School threw a birthday party on Friday for The Star Spangled Banner? The song is turning 200, though it started out as a poem and wasn’t officially designated our National Anthem until 1931. Another little bit of SSB trivia, if you’ll excuse that word in this context: it’s only the first stanza of four, the one that we’ve all memorized. The other three answer the question that’s posed at the end of the first.

Roosevelt’s celebration was supposed to be outdoors on the expansive front lawn. But poor weather moved it indoors to the school auditorium and as it turned out that may not have been such a bad thing after all.

The place filled with teens filing and piling in at quitting time on a Friday afternoon in football season. They were naturally boisterous and spirited. And then a remarkable thing happened. Almost on cue, except there wasn’t a discernible one, the big, majestic hall fell quiet. The color guard from the Junior ROTC program at Central Campus marched in right through the middle of a solemn, golden silence.

A packed house listened respectfully to introductory remarks by Roosevelt Principal Kevin Biggs and DMPS Superintendent Dr. Tom Ahart. Then the keynote speaker, Colonel Todd Jacobus; Commandant of the Iowa National Guard 67th Troop; a graduate of Hoover High School and a former student teacher at Roosevelt, stepped to the podium. Both he and Roosevelt Band Director Treg Marcellus, a sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, wore their dress blues.

“We all define ourselves in various ways that distinguish us from others,” Col. Jacobus said. “We’re Roughriders, we’re Iowans, and so on. But right now the important thing is what we have in common – that we’re all Americans.”

Colonel Jacobus went on to relate the story of a Roosevelt grad, prominent local attorney Bob Holliday. Holliday was born in 1943. He never met his father who was killed on active duty overseas during WWII. But Holliday went on to earn a football scholarship to Drake University and eventually to law school. He currently serves as the Board Chair of the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge.

The predominantly young audience sat at attention until Principal Biggs invited everyone to stand. The band was in the balcony. Choirs were scattered throughout the crowd. An enormous backdrop of the grand old flag commanded the stage. The 200 year-old song reverberated around the auditorium like freedom ringing loud and clear.

Happy Birthday never sounded quite like this.

Class was dismissed. American life went on, freely.

While the crowd dispersed Col. Jacobus shook the hand of each member of the choir behind him on the stage and thanked them as they filed out.

There is a too common misconception in the land that things like this don’t happen anymore in American schools. They most certainly do. On Friday at Roosevelt and North High. On Thursday morning at Goodrell Middle School. And regularly during first-thing-in-the-morning pledges of allegiance throughout the district.

Video of the Assembly at Roosevelt

Photos of the Assembly at Roosevelt