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State departments collaborate to honor WWI anniversary

Two state government departments are collaborating on a project memorializing the 100th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War One. George Olsen has more.

The red poppy has been used as a symbol to commemorate war dead since World War 1, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Field” written by Canadian Army officer John McCrae during the war after he noticed the poppies blooming around mass graves of soldiers on battlefields. The United States experienced over 50,000 war dead during the First World War, nearly 2400 of those soldiers from North Carolina. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the U-S entering World War I, the departments of Transportation and Cultural and Natural Resources have partnered to plant red poppies along state highways as part of the Transportation Department’s Wildflower Program. The state DOT has maintained flower beds in each of the state’s 14 highway divisions since 1985. I’m George Olsen.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.