<v Speaker 1>It's the spring of 1958 in a high school classroom

<v Speaker 1>in Lancaster, Ohio, and a 17-year-old kid walks in carrying

<v Speaker 1>his homework project. He's been up half a night working

<v Speaker 1>on it, 12 and a half hours at the kitchen

<v Speaker 1>table all told. His eyes are bloodshot, his fingers are sore,

<v Speaker 1>but it was worth it. He is proud of this thing.

<v Speaker 1>His teacher takes it, looks it over, turns it around

<v Speaker 1>a couple of times, and hands it back.

<v Speaker 2>B-minus.

<v Speaker 1>Now, the kid pushes back, says he worked harder on

<v Speaker 1>this than anything he's ever done in school. And the teacher,

<v Speaker 1>probably half-joking, says, if you don't like the grade, get

<v Speaker 1>it accepted in Washington and then come see me. Well,

<v Speaker 1>believe it or not, Washington accepted it. That project the

<v Speaker 1>teacher gave a B-minus, you've seen it. You've saluted it.

<v Speaker 1>It's flying over the White House, over every courthouse and

<v Speaker 1>post office and.

<v Speaker 2>Little League field in the country right now.

<v Speaker 1>It was the original design of the 50-star American flag.

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jerry Broadway, and from Hey Dad Productions, this is

<v Speaker 1>Anonymous America. Bob Heft was a junior at Lancaster High School.

<v Speaker 1>He was living with his grandparents when his American history

<v Speaker 1>teacher assigned an open-ended project. Make something, doesn't matter what,

<v Speaker 1>as long as it has to do with America. Bob

<v Speaker 1>had been paying attention to the news, and in 1958,

<v Speaker 1>the flag only had 48 stars because there were only

<v Speaker 1>48 states. It had been that way for nearly half

<v Speaker 1>a century. Six rows of eight, nice and tidy. But

<v Speaker 1>there was talk in Congress about bringing in Alaska and

<v Speaker 1>Hawaii as states. But it was just talk. Nothing official.

<v Speaker 1>Most folks figured it might happen someday. Bob figured someday

<v Speaker 1>was worth betting a homework grade on.

<v Speaker 2>Here's the thing.

<v Speaker 1>50 doesn't line up neat and tidy the way 48 does.

<v Speaker 1>So Bob sketched it out and landed on a staggered pattern,

<v Speaker 1>alternating rows of 6 stars and 5 stars. Simple.

<v Speaker 2>Balanced. Kind of elegant, actually. But then came the hard part.

<v Speaker 1>Bob took his parents' actual 48-star flag, the family flag,

<v Speaker 1>and cut the star field completely out of it. Then

<v Speaker 1>he bought a couple dollars worth of blue cloth and

<v Speaker 1>some iron-on white material. cut out 100 stars, 50 for

<v Speaker 1>each side, and went to work with his mother's sewing

<v Speaker 1>machine on the kitchen table. Twelve and a half hours later,

<v Speaker 1>he had a genuine, handmade, 50-star American flag. And when

<v Speaker 1>he turned it in, his teacher, a man named Stanley Pratt,

<v Speaker 1>gave it that famous B-minus. Said it lacked originality. Said

<v Speaker 1>essentially anybody could sew stars on a flag. And when

<v Speaker 1>Bob argued, Mr. Pratt made him that offer. Get Washington

<v Speaker 1>to take it, and I'll change your grade. Now, most

<v Speaker 1>17-year-olds would have just let it go, but Bob did not.

<v Speaker 1>He boxed that flag up and sent it to his congressman,

<v Speaker 1>a man named Walter Moeller, along with letters to the

<v Speaker 1>White House.

<v Speaker 2>And then he waited, and he wrote more letters, and

<v Speaker 2>he called.

<v Speaker 1>By his own count, Bob spent the better part of

<v Speaker 1>two years politely pestering the United States government about his homework.

<v Speaker 2>And then history caught up with Bob. In 1959, Alaska

<v Speaker 2>became a state.

<v Speaker 1>A few months later, Hawaii. And suddenly, the government had

<v Speaker 1>a very real problem. America needed a new flag. And

<v Speaker 1>thousands of designs came pouring in from all over the country.

<v Speaker 1>A lot of them looked very similar. Because when the

<v Speaker 1>answer is 50 stars, there's only so many good ways

<v Speaker 1>to arrange them. But Bob's design was perfect.

<v Speaker 2>And it was there.

<v Speaker 1>And his congressman had it and became its biggest champion.

<v Speaker 1>And then one day in 1960, the phone rang at

<v Speaker 1>the Heft House. It was long distance. Washington calling. More specifically,

<v Speaker 1>it was the White House. President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself

<v Speaker 1>got on the line to tell a kid from Lancaster, Ohio,

<v Speaker 1>that his design had been selected as the official flag

<v Speaker 1>of the United States of America. Every person that we

<v Speaker 1>resurrect on this show got overlooked.

<v Speaker 2>Passed over, written off.

<v Speaker 1>That's a little personal for me because when I'm not

<v Speaker 1>hosting podcasts or doing my radio show, I spend my

<v Speaker 1>days helping people big banks overlook too.

<v Speaker 2>See, I write home loans and.

<v Speaker 1>I have a soft spot in my heart for the

<v Speaker 1>borrower who doesn't fit into a neat little box because

<v Speaker 1>I'm one of them.

<v Speaker 2>Are you self-employed? A professional musician?

<v Speaker 1>Do you have income that comes in waves instead of

<v Speaker 1>a steady paycheck? I speak your language, but hear this.

<v Speaker 1>I write loans for everybody, every buyer, every price point,

<v Speaker 1>First timers, builders, investors, the whole nine. If you've got

<v Speaker 1>a dream and a story, I got a way to

<v Speaker 1>get you home. I'm Jerry Broadway, NMLS number 2722366. If

<v Speaker 1>you have questions about a mortgage, you can always call

<v Speaker 1>me 334-791-7356 or email me at jerry at cmghomeloans.com and

<v Speaker 1>we'll set up a time to talk. If you've been told, well,

<v Speaker 1>you're just going to have to rent because you have

<v Speaker 1>unusual income, you're talking to the wrong people.

<v Speaker 2>Now, let's get back to our story.

<v Speaker 1>On July 14th, 1960, Bob stood in Washington and watched

<v Speaker 1>his flag, the one from his kitchen table, the one

<v Speaker 1>with the iron-on stars, raised for the very first time

<v Speaker 1>as the flag of the United States.

<v Speaker 2>And yes, Mr. Pratt... Kept his word.

<v Speaker 1>He changed that B minus to an A and said

<v Speaker 1>something along the lines of, well, if it's good enough

<v Speaker 1>for Washington, it's good enough for me.

<v Speaker 2>Now, you might think that's the end of the story,

<v Speaker 2>but it's not. And this is the good part. Bob

<v Speaker 2>never cashed in.

<v Speaker 1>He went on to become a teacher himself, a professor even,

<v Speaker 1>and later served as the mayor of Napoleon, Ohio for

<v Speaker 1>more than 20 years. He traveled the country telling this

<v Speaker 1>story to school kids, and he kept that original flag.

<v Speaker 2>His entire life. And he turned down offers for it, too.

<v Speaker 2>Big ones.

<v Speaker 1>It had flown over the White House, over state capitals,

<v Speaker 1>over battlefields and monuments.

<v Speaker 2>That one flag traveled more than most of us ever will.

<v Speaker 1>And because Bob Heft was Bob Heft, he also designed

<v Speaker 1>a 51-star flag.

<v Speaker 2>Kept it ready just in case Puerto Rico or D.C.

<v Speaker 2>ever came aboard. He figured he won once.

<v Speaker 1>By betting on the future. And that paid off so well,

<v Speaker 1>he might as well just keep the bet running. Bob

<v Speaker 1>passed away in 2009. His design has now flown longer

<v Speaker 1>than any other flag in American history. Longer than the

<v Speaker 1>48 stars. Longer than Betsy Ross's 13. Every 4th of July,

<v Speaker 1>every ball game, every front porch in America, there's Bob's

<v Speaker 1>beautiful red, white, and blue B-minus homework assignment. The 12

<v Speaker 1>hours he spent at his mom's kitchen table only got

<v Speaker 1>him a B-minus in history. But those hours produced the

<v Speaker 1>longest serving flag in American history. The one in your

<v Speaker 1>town square. the one draped on coffins, the one flying

<v Speaker 1>over the White House. And Bob also has the honor

<v Speaker 1>of being the only man in history to have his

<v Speaker 1>homework planted on the moon. That's Robert Heft, and that's

<v Speaker 1>Anonymous America.