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Friday, November 22nd marks the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
People throughout the nation are commemorating that tragic day in American history in a variety
of ways, but probably none quite as unique as that being done by the University of Minnesota's
Floral Design class. Horticultural Professor Neil Anderson: Well, this is sympathy week
in floral design class and in sympathy week, we always do some artistic piece connected
with flowers that have to do with sympathy celebrations, so we've done floral grave blankets
for about the past seven years commemorating some special tragedy that occurred or is being
celebrated during the year. Well, today the title is 50 years after JFK so it commemorates
the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There will be
three panels. We have the floral design students divided into three groups so it's teamwork
designing today, so each group came up with a theme for their panel and then they will
be stitched together to make one big floral commemorative blanket. The class sketched
out their design plans before beginning to work with the flowers and greenery. The one
in the center is going be have the initials JFK and then his date of birth and date of
death, so just kind of the centerpiece of it. On the left hand side, is going to be
the presidential seal made out of flowers and foliage. And on the right hand side, it's
going to be 50 with the American Flag in it and the eternal flame below it. The Floral
Design class draws students from a variety of majors. Jennifer Guenther: I'm a senior
this year, so I'll be graduating in May. I'm actually a mechanical engineer. I just wanted
a break from engineering classes. So what made you take this class? I wanted to do something
different. I love flowers; I love gardening so this is kind of feeding my personal hobbies
a little bit. Pashoua Vang is a Global Studies and Chinese major. Pashoua Vang: I like flowers
and I've always wanted to work in a floral shop so I thought maybe if I took this course
someone will hire me someday. And my panel is - we're doing the United States President's
Seal. Earlier I made this wreath that's out of carnations and right now I'm just working
on the corners of the panel piece. Students are learning several things in class today.
One thing they're learning is designing as a team of florists. We've never done that
before it's always been individual floral designing. So that's always fun to learn to
work as a team to create a product that is acceptable. Second, they're also learning
techniques that we use in classic sympathy designing - how to make a set piece and so
forth and how to use flowers and foliage in that particular aspect. Sally Drew is working
toward her horticulture degree. Sally Drew: I love to garden and I'm one of these when
I pick my flowers out of my garden I'm just tempted to throw them in a vase, so I thought
this would be a good class for me to learn how to do it properly. We're working on the
middle piece where it will say JFK and commemorate his passing. We have the foil and I have some
iris and we have some willow that we've spray painted blue and the leaves to contrast the
other palm leaves we have. We've done a bit of historical record searching to find out
what flowers the Kennedy's liked. So we have a list of those up on the board, which includes
blue bachelors' buttons. John F. Kennedy always wore those on the lapel of his suit coat if
he wore flowers. And we also have bells of Ireland since he was Irish. We have a white
rose similar to the one named after him. There's a white rose called John F. Kennedy. Then,
we also have flowers that Jacqueline Kennedy liked. She liked periwinkle blue irises and
for her wedding day, carried gardenias, sprays of white and pink orchids, so we have those
types of flowers as well. A little bit about the history of floral grave blankets. These
are historically used in the Eastern U.S. particularly in the state of Pennsylvania
and the purpose of these were after the person was buried, these were put out on top of the
cemetery plots and staked into the ground to stay there for either several weeks or
months sometimes over the duration of the winter or the spring or summer. It was meant
to be a longer lasting floral tribute than the normal flowers for funerals and so forth.
For CFANS, I'm Patty Mattern.