City Times Staff

Post 6 American Legion has named this year’s Poppy Princess.

Rebecca Smart, 15, will reign as the senior Poppy Princess. She is a sophomore at Pacelli High School. Junior Princess is her 11-year-old sister, Angelina Smart, a fifth grader at St. Stephen’s.

Both girls are junior members of the American Legion Auxiliary. They are the daughters of Charles and Tina Smart of Stevens Point.

The princesses bring awareness to the Poppy Program, one that distributes millions of bright red crepe-paper poppies in exchange for contributions to assist disabled and hospitalized veterans.

Poppies are the official memorial flower of the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary. It’s a tradition that dates back to World War I. Poppies grew wild on the battlefields in Belgium and France, a point many soldiers remembered when they returned home.

The flowers were made famous in a poem, “In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian officer Col. John McCrea during World War I:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.