Robert G. Heft designed America’s official 50-star flag. He did so as a response to a class assignment as a Lancaster High School student. Stanley Pratt, Robert’s history teacher, asked his students to make a project indicating their interest in American history. Since Robert was excited that Hawaii and Alaska were going to become states, rather than territories of the United States, he decided that his project would be to create a new US flag representing the two incoming states.

Robert spent over twelve hours that weekend designing and creating a new flag by cutting up the flag his parents had received as a wedding present. He arranged the fifty white stars, in alternating horizontal rows of five and six stars, on a blue cloth background. He kept the seven alternating horizontal red and six white stripes representing the original thirteen colonies. He also kept the flag’s three colors, red, white, and blue, representing, respectively, courage, purity, and justice.