News and Events
George Washington Book Prize Celebration
September 14-15, 2006
On Thursday, September 14, Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience hosted the annual George Washington Book Prize Celebration to honor the 2006 prize winner Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. The event coincided with the 300th anniversary year of Benjamin Franklin's birth.
Since tensions between the British and Americans have lessened somewhat since 1776, the College was visited His Britannic Majesty King George III's 4th Company, Brigade of Guards, who demonstrated to visiting school students and the public how British soldiers lived, marched, and fought during the War of Independence (known to them as "The Rebellion").
The centerpiece of the celebration was a lecture by Ms. Schiff, "Dr. Franklin's French Adventure," in the College's Tawes Theatre. Before the talk, the crowd was entertained by the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment's Old Guard Fife & Drum Corps, giving a rousing performance of Revolutionary-era drilling and music.
Washington College students get a lesson on loading and firing a musket from His Britannic Majesty King George III's 4th Company, Brigade of Guards.
Now that our two nations are allies, these Redcoats don't mind appearing on stage with Washington College President Baird Tipson, author Stacy Schiff, and Adam Goodheart, Director of Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.
The Old Guard on stage in Tawes Theatre.
Spit and polish circa 1780—the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment's Old Guard Fife & Drum Corps stand at attention.
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