4th of July

July 4th Celebration Address 2020

On the 4th of July, Monticello College will hold a sunrise service beginning at 5:50am. Following this devotional, the college president will read the short speech below and offer a showing of the David Barton video: Sands of Time.

On this day of celebration, it is customary to recite some moments of historical significance regarding the War of Independence and the break from Great Britain. But today I have chosen to spend a few minutes remembering why the war occurred and what that great struggle was meant to achieve. As I have reflected on this idea, my mind returned over and over to the simplicity and gravity of the 1954 U.S. Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Many would say that our great nation began on July 4, 1776. We had a great struggle for independence, and organized a new nation–that history is abundantly available and part of our curriculum at Monticello College. But the IDEA of a nation like our started much earlier, in fact, a case could be made that it started as early as 1607, with the settlement of Jamestown or 1636 with the establishment of Harvard University.  Or maybe it wasn’t until the appearance of great frontiersmen of the late 1700’s such as Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Whatever date you use as a starting point, the Pledge of Allegiance is very instructive as a focal point for what the framers intended for this nation to become.

United States of America

America was, according to the framers, to be a nation of nations, or to use the term of the time, a “federation of sovereign states.” Each state was supreme in its administration within its borders but ceded limited powers to a central government.

Republic

The framers combed through thousands of years of history and through all sorts of forms and philosophies of government reading the writings of great writers such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau and Montesquieu, finally settling on a Republic as the best form of government.

One Nation Under God

Without attempting to dictate the future, the framers left a legacy of religious observance in official acts, writings, and art to encourage their progeny to have an expectation of Divine influence if the nation was to remain. From the chambers of the Supreme Court to the Capitol’s Rotunda, religious engravings and art can be seen by all to evince the influence of religion and dependence on a Divine Creator in the forming of our great nation.

Indivisible

As families can have their squabbles and disagreements, so too can a nation of sovereign states find reasons to disagree. In spite of this propensity, the framers envision our nation to be unified and indivisible. A great and terrible war was fought to test this resolve and to date, it has held.

Liberty and Justice for All

The Signing of the Constitution of the United States, with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson at the Constitutional Convention of 1787; oil painting on canvas by Howard Chandler Christy, 1940. The painting is 20 by 30 feet and hangs in the United States Capitol building. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

The foundation and supreme logic behind the formation of our nation is the establishment and protection of liberty and the administration of justice. In many ways America is a global leader in the protection of human and civil rights. In other areas, it is a continuing struggle, but as obvious as our faults may be, all are free to protest and express their grievances as guaranteed under the 1st amendment and demonstrated over the past few months.

As we celebrate this 4th of July holiday, we can rejoice in the liberties that all Americans enjoy, we should give thanks for the miracle that America is, and we must continue to defend the rights of all Americans through education, public discourse, and the administration of justice.

The framers would have it no other way.

Video: https://www.facebook.com/WallBuilders1776/videos/308907610509835/

Krislyn Elliott & Lauren Swanepoel

Krislyn Elliott and Lauren Swanepoel act more like sisters than moms as they take really slow walks through the woods together, looking at and taking pictures of every plant they see & wishing they could remember their names and uses more thoroughly. They also like concocting herbal teas, salves, tinctures and strange drinks.

Krislyn is from Utah and has loved learning about plants since an unusually cool high school biology teacher took his classes on neighborhood botany walks. She has always been fascinated and constantly amazed at the power and beauty of plants.

Lauren is from South Africa, she and her family emigrated to Utah almost 10 years ago. They have fallen in love with the area and know more about this state & the great places to explore here than most Utah natives.

We both feel strongly about taking care of our families with natural methods and the abundant medicine we have growing right around us. We are trying to learn as much as we can about our magical local plants and are looking forward to sharing some of our favorites with you.

William DeMille

Director of Georgic Develeopment

William DeMille is a lifelong vegetable farmer. He studied Horticulture and Agronomy at Northwest Missouri University, Maryville. He holds a certificate in aquaponic engineering and production from Cornell University, NY, and another from GrowHaus Aquaponics in Denver, CO. He also studied soil regeneration and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. He is the Director of Georgic Development for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

William is a farm consultant establishing several agricultural startups since 2005 in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and he currently manages 2500 acres of grassland for the Ruby Mountain Foods Company.

His latest venture is a market gardening school called Georgic Revolution where he teaches a 17-week course onsite in Nevada covering soil health and vegetable production without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and where he operated a soil lab.

William lives with his wife Vernie in the snow capped mountains of Northern Nevada.

Lloyd Nelson

World Renown BD Expert

Lloyd Nelson has been practicing the art of Biodynamic (BD) Agriculture for over twenty years. He is a BD preparation maker, builder, artist, farmer, arborist, BD educator & consultant. He is co-founder of Biodynamic Source – a Colorado based non-profit specializing in high potency BD preparations – and he owns and operates a Biodynamic spray, fertilizer and consultation service. He has worked with small and large scale farms, vineyards, and orchards to transition to sustainable Biodynamic land management and Demeter BD Certification.

Vern Cox, PhD

Educator

Vern Cox is married to Joyce Christensen and they have 8 children. He has 3 earned degrees, a BA in psychology, and both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy.

He has had a diverse and interesting career that started with the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a stint as a Learning Disabilities teacher, and finally a marriage and family therapist, working his way up to executive director of the High Country Counseling and Resource Centers that served two counties in Wyoming.

Dr. Cox served for several years on the board of a charter school. Dr. Cox remains heavily involved in his community and the home schooling movement.

He has extensive background in marriage and family counseling, having held a number of administrative positions during his first career. He holds a BA in Psychology and both a Masters and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He lives with his wife and several married children on their multi-generation farm in Southern Utah.

Joseph Lofthouse

Educator

Joseph adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, labor, and materials to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross-pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Joseph loves eating, farming, swimming, hot-springs, sunbathing, bird-watching, running, yoga, leggings, kilts, playing guitar, singing, and living habitually barefoot.

Dan Brooks

Educator

Dan Brooks was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. During his first career, he spent 20 years working in and managing high-end restaurants and golf courses including extensive banquet/special events services and ice sculptures.

For the past 23 years, Dan has been a successful entrepreneur and family business owner in Las Vegas. He and his wife have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He serves as a trustee for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

Shanon Brooks, PhD

Director

Shanon Brooks is the director of The Center for American Legacy Studies, an institution dedicated to helping families embrace and incorporate the Five American Ideals; Georgics, Liber, Providence, Public Virtue, and Liberty into their lives and communities. America exists because of Americans. Americans are the beneficiaries of a peculiar culture and way of living.

Over the past 75 years, that culture and way of life have been lost. Restore that culture and Americans will rebuild America to once again be worthy of John Winthrop’s 1630 admonition, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Brooks has been a leader in alternative higher education for over 30 years, and is the author of two books: AMERICAN: Killing the American Dream and A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.

Dr. Brooks is a veteran of military service in the United States Submarine Fleet and holds a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Master’s degree in education, and a Ph.D. in constitutional law.

He and his wife Julia reside on the 80-acre conference facility of The Center for American Legacy Studies.