CoastalNC-Wilmington.com would like to wish all the Fathers a Happy Father’s Day! The idea for creating Father’s Day, a day for children to honor their fathers, was first thought of by a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd. Sonora was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 in Spokane, Washington when the idea for Father’s Day came to her.
Her father, William Jackson Smart, had raised her after her mother died and Sonora wanted to let father know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
A National Father’s Day Committee was formed in New York City in 1926. Father’s Day was finally recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day to be held on the third Sunday of June.
So Father’s Day was born in memory and gratitude by a daughter who thought that her father and all good fathers should be honored with a special day just like we honor our mothers on Mother’s Day.
The sea turtles are coming ashore nightly and nesting on the area beaches including Wrightsville Beach.
Battery Island, located just down the Cape Fear River from Wilmington NC, is home to the largest White Ibis nesting population in southeastern North Carolina. For many years, this 100-acre Audubon Sanctuary has been the site of North Carolina’s largest gathering of breeding wading birds. Herons, egrets, and ibises flock to the island by the thousands each spring. Since 1982, the island has been guarded and protected by the National Audubon Society.
