In observance of Constitution Day, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades of Mountain View Learning Academy were presented with a project intended to help them better understand the U.S. Constitution.
     This project’s purpose was for the students to understand how and why the U.S. Constitution came to be written. After giving a brief history of events leading up to the Revolutionary War and how the Articles of Confederation did not have enough power to successfully govern the 13 colonies, Phyllis Murton, writing teacher at Mountain View Learning Academy (Alpine Union School District’s home schooling program), gave each student a copy of the Preamble to the Constitution with underlined words that she did not think students would sufficiently understand to give the Preamble meaning.
     In groups, using dictionaries and thesauruses, the students changed the underlined words, and what follows is the best of their interpretations.

The original preamble states:
     We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
                                                                                                                                                  — 1787

The following is the best of the students’ translations:
     We the people of the United States, in order to have a more perfect unity, make certain there is fairness, make certain there is peace in our country, make certain that everyone is protected, give everyone a chance at well-being, and guarantee all the benefits of freedom to ourselves and future generations, do authorize this code of laws for the United States of America.
                                                                                   Mountain View Learning Academy Students — 2005

Information submitted by Lori Bledsoe

The U.S. Constitution: hotly debated both then and today
     The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25.
It became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would need to draft an entirely new framework. Throughout the summer, delegates debated and redrafted the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected — directly by the people, or by the state legislators. 
     On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created.
     During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the document, as drafted, would open the way to tyranny by the central government. They demanded a bill of rights to spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Among the first 10 amendments, which became known as the Bill of Rights, are the three most hotly debated, both then and today. Ratified Dec. 15, 1791, they are:

Amendment I — Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression
     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II — Right to bear arms
     A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment X — Powers of the States and People
     The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
     Constitution Day is a relatively new holiday. President George W. Bush, in December 2004, signed the bill designating Sept. 17 as Constitution Day.

POWs, MIAs, remembered on Constitution Day 
By Chris Mac Kenzie
For The Alpine Sun
     ALPINE — Constitution Day, commemorating the birth of our nation when our founding fathers created the document under which our nation is governed, was celebrated in proper fashion by the members of the VFW Bert Fuller Post #9578 on Saturday night, Sept. 17 with a solemn ceremony honoring former POW’s and MIA’s.
     The service was heartfelt for many of the members who had lost friends and relatives in America’s wars, as well as those who were POW’s and those who have relatives listed as MIA. As they listened to prayers offered by VFW Chaplain Mike McCall, and Yolanda Anderwalt, chaplain of the women’s auxiliary, many of the members were close to tears. 
     Cmdr. Bob Samuels presided and introduced the speaker, Sgt. Jack Roland, who served in World War II as an army paratrooper with the 103rd Airborne It was during the Battle of the Bulge that he and a number of his buddies were captured after they had jumped into enemy territory. He told of his experiences during the next year spent in Stalag 7A near Nuremburg.
     “Near the end of the war, they forced us to start on a 500 mile “death march,” he said. “We were finally rescued when we saw Patton coming over the hill.” Now, many years later, Roland is occasionally asked to speak at the Marine Training Center giving young Marine recruits instructions on what to do in case they are ever captured in combat.
     Samuels presented special certificates honoring POWs to both Roland and Virgil Chapman, a VFW member who was captured in the Korean conflict.
     The evening, which began with a spaghetti dinner, served by the Women’s Auxiliary, was especially poignant for Yolanda Anderwalt whose brother, Richard Deleidi, an F4 fighter pilot shot down by ground fire in Vietnam, is listed as MIA. Recently 13 more bodies have been recovered and returned to Hawaii where authorities are attempting to identify the remains. This weekend, authorities have asked the surviving members of Deleidi’s family to gather at the Hanalei Hotel for an update report and to have their DNA’s taken to help in the identification process.
     Anderwalt reports that she flew to Washington D.C. six years ago to give her DNA but that this update meeting is a new effort to identify the deceased service men which, if successful, will comfort the family members greatly.