President Coolidge, an adept communicator and savvy manager of the press a century ago, is back to headlining the news. Roger Simmons over at the Orlando Sentinel has a piece out today on the visits of Presidents to central Florida, especially highlighting the February 1929 and January 1930 trips the Coolidges made to the Sunshine State. Mr. Simmons also contrasts the rivaling accounts between the favorable Morning Sentinel and the hostile Evening Reporter-Star of that first visit on the way to the dedication of Bok Tower in 1929. Even salient Cal still generates his partisan detractors. Political reporting is anything but a phenomenon of recent years.

Also in the news, a statue loaned to Florida through the efforts of Secretary of State Cord Byrd, chairman of the state’s 250th Commission, is set to be dedicated on Independence Day at Bok Tower in Lake Wales. It is a fitting place to host the dedication, as Bok Tower has long been a firm friend of the Coolidges. It promises to be a momentous year of commemorations, bringing Coolidge’s place in America’s 250 years welcome central stage, highlighting the fact that he not only dedicated Bok’s iconic landmark and gardens but presided over the nation during its Sesquicentennial in 1926.

Tax attorney and wealth management professional Megan Gorman, founding partner of Chequers Financial Management, has a wonderfully untapped perspective on the Presidents in her excellent book, All the Presidents Money, with a great section on Coolidge’s legacy handling his own money. Her presentation at the Truman Presidential Library today (2-3pm CST) is well worth attending, if you have secured a seat!

Moreover, another project launched by former President Bush’s More Perfect initiative is underway called In Pursuit, led by Colleen Shogan, assembling a broad range of scholars, authors, and public figures with essays and academic reexamination challenging Americans to take inventory with a purposeful “debrief” of the last two and a half centuries. The forthcoming work is offered for every American to renew commitment to the nation’s continuously developing institutional framework and a rejuvenating civic responsibility to its “enduring principles” heading into the next 250 years. Partnering with 43 Presidential Libraries and institutions, In Pursuit is working through the Semiquincentennial year of America’s experiment in self-government to approach historical study through the lens of the Presidents and First Ladies. Naturally, the Coolidge Presidential Foundation is involved in the effort. Archivist Shogan and Ms. Amity Shlaes of the Presidential Foundation will be working on the studies relating to Grace and Calvin Coolidge.

Happy Presidents’ Day this Semiquincentennial Year, Coolidge Country!