Robert Heft Got a B-Minus for Designing the U.S. Flag
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:14.1 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:18.0 | Our next story is about a 17-year-old kid named Bob Heft, who designed the 50-star |
| 0:24.2 | American flag. We fly proudly to this very day. Here's Greg Hangler with the story. |
| 0:36.5 | After learning about Betsy Ross, he probably didn't give much thought to how the subsequent |
| 0:41.5 | U.S. flags were designed. |
| 0:43.8 | It might seem like a no-brainer of flag makers just added a new star for every new state, right? |
| 0:49.3 | Well, it turns out not that simple. |
| 0:52.2 | Each new flag has a very careful design, |
| 0:55.2 | and the arrangement of the stars must be precise and symmetrical. |
| 0:59.3 | And for the flag we know today, |
| 1:01.9 | that arrangement was designed by a junior in high school from Ohio. |
| 1:07.2 | It was 1958, and America only contained 48 United States. |
| 1:13.1 | The flag at the time featured six rows of eight stars. |
| 1:17.7 | Bob Heff's history teacher assigned a class project |
| 1:21.0 | where each student had to bring in something they made. |
| 1:24.9 | Bob Heft loved flags, and he loved politics. So having been inspired by the |
| 1:31.3 | Betsy Ross story the class just studied and seeing the news that Alaska was poised to become our |
| 1:36.7 | nation's 49th state, with Hawaii soon behind, Heft decided to make a 50-star flag. Here's Bob. |
| 1:45.8 | In American History class, we had to do an outside-of-class project. We could make or do |
| 1:50.9 | whatever we wanted. Like a science fair or something like that, you bring the project in. |
| 1:55.5 | The Betsy Ross story intrigued me. And my mom and dad, they had a 48-star flag they received as a wedding present, |
... |
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