Eight Cass 4-Hers watched 4th fireworks in Washington
Published 9:56 am Saturday, July 19, 2003
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS -- Arlington National Cemetery impressed upon Cass County Fair King Sam Preston of Dowagiac the "amazing" number of "graves of people who died serving our country. It's really incredible."
Citizenship Washington Focus (CWF) 2003 delegates from Cass County include Mallory Cox, Leah Dohm, Ken Franz, Linaya Hass, Amanda Mengel, Natalie Peterson, Sam Preston and Amanda Van Husan.
They shared their experiences of spending the Fourth of July in the nation's capital Thursday with the county Board of Commissioners at the Edward Lowe Center for the Council on Aging.
Leah talked about and circulated photographs of the Holocaust Museum.
Mallory marveled at Gettysburg's electric map with lights "showing how different infantries moved and where they fought. It was really amazing being able to see all those grave sites and knowing they were men at one time. It was astounding. I couldn't believe it."
Kenny Franz addressed the Korean war memorial. "It's statues of 13 men walking across the field. Then there's a reflection wall, so there are 26. The other statue is men putting up the flag. There are six men and 13 hands. The 13th hand is said to be the hand of Christ."
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument to unidentified warriors, is always guarded.
Linaya "learned a lot from the workshops. We were broken up into different groups and went to a class every day. Basically, we learned how to write and pass bills. In our workshop, we were given $275 billion to break up" and decide how it would allocated between three areas, agriculture, defense and education, then lobby their lawmakers to pass their legislation.
Natalie found the National Cathedral "very big and very quiet. There's kind of like a dress code. Ladies have to have their shoulders covered. They can't show anything too risque. You have to make a $1 donation to the church, like an offering. There are lots of stained glass windows and it was really cool, I guess."
Amanda Van Husan reported on being in Washington on Independence Day.
Sam said they stayed in the National 4-H Conference Center.