Highest Honors Ceremony

Our school district holds a special Highest Honors Ceremony before graduation to celebrate all of the seniors completing high school with a grade point average above 4.0. It's a big deal. The superintendent, school board, and principals of all five high schools conduct the ceremony. Each graduate is introduced with where they will be going to college, what their major will be, and what career they hope to have. They receive the honor cords they'll wear at their graduations. It's really inspiring and a great way to acknowledge the hard work that goes into earning four years of perfect grades in advanced classes. 

Highest Honors Ceremony (affiliate link)

There were 190 students at the Highest Honors Ceremony for the Class of 2024. By now, they are 2/3 of the way through their freshman year of college. I sincerely hope they are all thriving and continuing to be as successful as they were in high school.  

50 State Quarters Program - Fun Facts

Between finishing a coloring page for each of the 50 state quarters and then grading the design of each quarter, I learned a lot about the 50 State Quarters Program. I found out about inspiration, innovations, and clever design decisions, as well as errors, omissions, and seriously disgruntled artists. Read on for the most interesting of the fun facts I discovered. 

Fun Facts About the 50 State Quarters Program

• Each of the 50 state quarters was minted for only 10 weeks.

• More than 34 billion coins were minted during the 50 State Quarters Program, but the amount produced for each state varied greatly. Virginia had the greatest number of quarters produced (1.59 billion) and Oklahoma had the fewest (416.6 million). 

• The inspiration for the 50 State Quarters Program came from Canada. Canada issued commemorative quarters featuring each of the 12 provinces and territories in 1992 to honor their 125th anniversary.

• The Onion produced two articles spoofing the 50 State Quarters Program: Collecting All 50 State Quarters Senior's Only Reason To Remain Alive and U.S. Mint Gears Up To Issue Commemorative County Pennies. 

• The Alabama state quarter is the first US coin featuring Braille writing.

• The Hawaii state quarter honors King Kamehameha, making it the first circulating US coin to feature royalty. 

• New Jersey's quarter was the first coin in history to show George Washington on both the front and the back.

• Kermit the Frog was named the Spokesfrog for the 50 State Quarters Program. He appeared in commercials and print ads.  

• The most significant minting errors in the state quarter series include the Wisconsin "Extra Leaf" quarters. There are two versions of the mistake: one with a "low leaf" and one with a "high leaf" next to the cornstalk.   

• The state outline on the Georgia quarter leaves out Dade County, in the northwestern part of the state. It wasn't a minting error, but rather a design problem. While that was presumably an accident, in 1860 the county seceded from both the US and the state of Georgia. That was never legally recognized and the county "rejoined" the state and the nation in 1945. Indiana's outline is also missing part of its northwestern corner. 

• On Tennessee's state quarter, there are only five strings on the 6-string guitar (which shows 6 tuning pegs). 

• The design contest winner for Missouri, artist Paul Jackson, claimed that the Mint needlessly "dumbed down" his design because they claimed, falsely, that it was "uncoinable." There's a lot to this story: read all about Quartergate. Then read about other artists who felt they were not given the credit they deserved for their designs.

• The 50 State Quarters Program was hugely successful. Roughly half the population collected state quarters, making it the most successful numismatic program in US history. The government has made approximately $3 billion from collectors taking coins out of circulation. 

The 50 State Quarters Program ended in 2008, but that was not the end to commemorative quarters. Three additional programs have led to quarters honoring US territories, national parks and forests, and American women. These programs include: 

• District of Columbia & U.S. Territories Quarters (2009)
• America the Beautiful Quarters (2010-2021)
• American Women Quarters (2022-2025)

There are some gorgeous designs. I have no plans to color them all, but I may end up coloring a few of my favorite quarters in the future, after I've forgotten how much work it was coloring the 50 I did!

Spuddy Buddy Idaho Potato Craft

The mascot of the Idaho Potato Commission is a potato named Spuddy Buddy. He was born in 1983 as Potato Buddy, dressed in a bandana and cowboy hat, and appeared in ads to promote Idaho potatoes. Ten years later, he got a big makeover, giving him his current look. Spuddy Buddy became known nationally after a 1996 appearance at the Today Show window and can now be seen in ads and in person at football games, with the Big Idaho Potato Truck, and many other places. He’s such an icon that I thought it would be fun to turn him into a craft. Affilliate links below. 

 

Spuddy Buddy Idaho Potato Craft

Materials: 

• cardstock or construction paper (tan, brown, white, red)
• scissors
• pens (black, yellow, brown)
• craft glue

Steps: 

Begin by cutting out all the pieces you will need: 

• one tan rectangle, with two corners rounded (body)
• one large red rectangle, the same width as the tan rectangle (shirt)
• two thin red rectangles (shirt sleeves)
• two thin white rectangles (trim on shirt)
• two long brown rectangles (legs)
• two brown gloves
• two small white rectangles (trim for sleeves)
• one white rectangle (design on shirt)
• two white shoes 
• two white eyes (not pictured below)

Use a black pen to draw pupils on the eyes and to color the black portion of the shoes. Then use a brown pen to draw an outline of Idaho on the white rectangle. Color outside the outline with brown and inside the outline with yellow. Then write IDAHO in brown. 

Glue everything in place. Then use the black pen to draw eyebrows, a nose, and a smile.

I really enjoyed making Spuddy Buddy!