Famous Inventor: Samuel Morse

Every student in 2nd and 3rd grade at Veterans Park Elementary was assigned an inventor and given one month to research the person, make an outline, write a report, create a poster, prepare an oral presentation and wear a costume on the day it was presented. Trey was given Samuel Morse: Inventor of the Electric Telegraph and Morse Code. This past Friday the project was due. While I would love to say we worked on it early and had nothing to do during the final week, sadly that wasn't the case. From Monday- Thursday Trey and I poured over papers and scanned countless Internet sites gathering data. By Wednesday he had the oral presentation down. And on Thursday we put the finishing touches on the poster and created numerous medals and awards Trey would wear as part of his costume.Samuel Finley Breese Morris (1791-1872). He was an accomplished professional painter until age 41 and painted the President of the United States, Eli Whitney and studied and painted in France, England and Italy. While sailing back from Europe in 1832, he had a discussion with a fellow passenger about electromagnetism and that sparked the idea for an electric telegraph. Five years later he had made an working telegraph, applied for a US patent and in 1838 demonstrated his invention before the President of the United States. This was the beginning of modern telecommunications.

After living away for nearly a decade (including college), I think the one invention I am most grateful for is the telephone. There is nothing like dialing a number and hearing familiar voice on the other end. It is truly a miracle and one thing I couldn't bear to live without. 7:45 AM The Parade of Inventors. Whoever thought of having this the minute school began is a bit insane in my opinion, but luckily Rich used one of his hard earned bonus days and was off of work so he happily attended and snapped pictures so I could share in Trey's proud moment. I thought he looked great among the other inventors.
Great job Trey!