Robert Heft Got a B-Minus for Designing the U.S. Flag

On this episode of Our American Stories, The American flag that flies over every state capitol, school, and battlefield began as a high school assignment. Robert Heft, a 17-year-old student from Ohio, created the 50-star design in 1958 and received a B-minus for his effort. When Hawaii entered the Union in 1959, President Eisenhower selected Heft’s version as the official flag of the United States. More than six decades later, Bob Heft’s B-minus project remains the enduring symbol of the nation. Our own Greg Hengler shares the story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
is about a seventeen year old kid named Bob Heft,
who designed the fifty star American flag we fly proudly
to this very day. Here's Greg Hangler with the story.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
After learning about Betsy Ross, you probably didn't give much
thought to how the subsequent US flags were designed. It
might seem like a no brainer. Flagmaker has just added
a new star for every new state, Right, Well, it
turns out not that simple. Each new flag has a
very careful design and the arrangement of the stars must

(00:52):
be precise and symmetrical. And for the flag we know today,
that arrangement was designed by a junior in high school
from Ohio. It was nineteen fifty eight and America only
contained forty eight United States. The flag at the time
featured six rows of eight stars. Bob Heff's history teacher

(01:15):
assigned a class project where each student had to bring
in something they made. Bob Heft loved flags, then he
loved politics, so, having been inspired by the Betsy Ross story,
the class just studied and seeing the news that Alaska
was poised to become our nation's forty ninth state, with
Hawaii soon behind. Half decided to make a fifty star flag.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Here's Bob an American history class. We had to do
an outside of class project. We can make or do
whatever he wanted, like a science fair or something like that.
You bring the project in. The Betsy Ross story intrigued
me and my mom and dad. They had a forty
eight star flag they received as a wedding present. Course

(02:00):
meant a lot to them. Well, I took a scissors
and cut it up.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Half's mother walked in from the kitchen and found him
cutting up their family flag and promptly began scolding him.
She told his father when he got home, and heft
received another tongue lashing. I had always been in the
Boy Scouts, and I had always been patriotic, Half told
the Lancaster Eagle Gazette in two thousand and seven. They

(02:26):
wanted to know why I would turn on the flag.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I had never sown in my life. I watched my
mom sew, but I'd never sewn, and since making the
flag of her country, I've never sewn again. So anyhow,
we get the class. I had my flag on a
teacher's desk, and the teacher said, what's this thing on
my desk. So I got up and I approached the
desk and I'm shaking like a leaf. And he said,
why you got too many stars? You don't even know

(02:52):
how many states we have. And he gave me the
grade of a BEE minus. Now that a bee minus
isn't that bad of a grade. However, a friend of mine, Jim,
he picked up five leaves off the ground. He's taping
these leaves down to the notebook in the labeman ELM.
Hickory maple, and the teacher gave him the grade of
an A. I was really I I was upset. The

(03:15):
teacher said, if you don't like the grade to get
it accepted in Washington, then come back and see me.
I might consider changing the grade.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Bob arrived home that day with his class project.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I had ano plastic bag and I threw it
on the sofa and a mother command. She said, suppers ready.
I said, I'm not hungry. She said, what's wrong? I said,
and I never talked about a teacher. I said, this
stupid teacher give me a B minus on the flag.
And then she really hacked me. I said, that's more
I to give you, because she was really dead set
against this. Two years later, I'd written twenty one letter

(03:48):
to the White House, made eighteen phone calls. Now you
can imagine when my mom got the phone bell. What's
this number, I said, well, mom, that's the White House.
So anyhow, I got this call and he said, now
the President United State is calling you later on today. Well,
at that time, Eisenhower was president. And he comes on
the phone and he says, is this Robert G. Heft?

(04:11):
And I said, yes, sir, but you can just call
me Bob. And he says, I want to know the
possibility of coming to Washington, d C. On July fourth
for the official adoption of the new flag.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Bob received this call from President Eisenhower at his new
place of employment. Here's what happened next.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, I've been at this company eleven days. I said,
well wait a minute, my boss is standing here. I
reached down, pushed the red button on the phone, put
the President United States on hold. What are you doing?
I said, I've got to talk to you. He said,
you just put the President United States on hold. I said,
he wants me to come to Washington. He said, well,
tell him you'll be there. I said, look, I don't

(04:50):
have any sick leave I don't have any vacation because
you know, your first job out of high school, you
don't want to mess up and lose it. And he said,
get him back on the phone, we'll work. Got the details. Well,
charged it off to executive leave or something, but yet
him back. He was really upset. And we did a
lot of military contracts. I think they probably thought, here's
this kid that's been working there for eleven days, is

(05:12):
going to mess up future contracts, you know, putting the
president on hold. So I picked up the phone, put
the white button, put the phone up, and said, Dwight,
are you still there? Because you know, I didn't know
how you properly address it. And they're cracking up. Oh
my lord, here Bob talking to abouddy Dwight and stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Years following his talk with Dwight, Bob preserved this historic
moment and paid a visit to his old teacher.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
And so I have the grade book. It's incased in plastics,
kept in the bank my teacher. And he said, I
guess if it's good enough for Washington, it's good enough
for me. I hear by change the grade to an.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
A decades after half to inspired people young and old,
with his Follow Your Dreams story. He became a high
school teacher, college professor, and a seven term mayor of Napoleon, Ohio.
He spoke extensively, as many as two hundred engagements a year,
and visited the White House fourteen times under nine presidents.

(06:13):
Half died on December twelfth, two thousand and nine, at
the age of sixty eight, but his legacy survives every
time we fly his fifty star creation. And if the
US ever adds a fifty first state, HEF's got that
flag covered two Back in nineteen fifty eight, he designed
a fifty one star version that uses six rows of stars,

(06:36):
alternating between rows of nine and eight. This would make
Heft the only person to design two United States flags.
Bob said in two thousand and seven, an idea doesn't
do any good if you don't pursue it.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And what a story Bob
Heft's is and was class project assignment, basically a high
school class project, an American history class project. And my goodness,
be still my heart, we should have more like these.
The story of American imagination, the story of Bob Heft

(07:20):
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(07:42):
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