LAFAYETTE ASSOCIATION
OF PROFESSIONAL LANDMEN
www.almanac.com/content/when-presidents-day
Written By: Catherine Boeckmann Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener
Presidents’ Day is Monday, February 16, 2026! Did you know that the official federal holiday is called “Washington’s Birthday”? So, why do some states call it Presidents’ Day? Learn more.
Although the holiday is most often called “Presidents’ Day,” the observed federal holiday is officially called “Washington’s Birthday.”
Neither Congress nor the president has ever stipulated that the name of the holiday observed as Washington’s Birthday be changed to Presidents’ Day. Additionally, Congress has never declared a national holiday binding in all states; each state has the freedom to determine its legal holidays. This is why there are some calendar discrepancies when it comes to this holiday’s date. Read more from the National Archives.
The Day George Washington Became President
When is Inauguration Day? 2025 Inauguration Date
When George Washington Died | How a Young Nation Mourned
In a sense, calling the holiday Presidents’ Day helps us reflect on not just the first president but also our nation’s founding, its values, and what Washington calls in his Farewell Address the “beloved Constitution and union, as received from the Founders.” Also, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is February 12, so by calling the holiday “Presidents’ Day,” we can also include another remarkable president in our celebrations.
Today, many calendars list the third Monday of February as Presidents’ Day, just as many U.S. states do. Of course, all of the 3-day retail store sales are called “Presidents’ Day” sales, and this vernacular has also been influential in how we reference the holiday.
Presidents’ Day is observed annually on the third Monday in February. In 2026, Presidents’ Day will be celebrated on Monday, February 16.
Historically, Americans began celebrating George Washington’s Birthday just months after his death, long before Congress declared it a federal holiday. It was not until 1879, under President Rutherford B. Hayes, that Washington’s Birthday became a legal holiday, to be observed on his birthday, February 22.
Washington’s birthday was celebrated on February 22 until well into the 20th century. In 1968, Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law to “provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays.” By creating more 3-day weekends, Congress hoped to “bring substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the Nation.”
Today, George Washington’s Birthday is one of only 11 permanent federal holidays established by Congress, observed each year. One of the great traditions followed for decades has been the reading of George Washington’s Farewell Address by a U.S. senator in legislative session, which remains an annual event to this day.
Although the federal holiday is held on a Monday (the third Monday of February), George Washington’s birthday is observed on February 22. To complicate matters, Washington was actually born on February 11, 1731! How can that be?
George Washington was born when the Julian calendar was in use. During Washington’s lifetime, people in Great Britain and America switched the official calendar system from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar (something that most of Europe had already done in 1582).
As a result of this calendar reform, people born before 1752 were told to add 11 days to their birth dates. Those born between January 1 and March 25, as Washington was, also had to add 1 year to be in sync with the new calendar.
By the time Washington became president in 1789, he celebrated his birthday on February 22 and listed his birth year as 1732.
To summarize, Washington’s birthday changed from February 11, 1731 (Old-Style Julian calendar), to February 22, 1732 (New-Style Gregorian calendar).
Legend has it that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree when he was 6 years old and, when confronted by his father, said, “I can not tell a lie. I did it with my hatchet.”
Well, we can not tell a lie, either. Washington didn’t say this; he didn’t even chop down the tree! This tale was, in fact, concocted by Parson Mason Weems (1759–1825), one of Washington’s biographers, who made up the story hoping to demonstrate Washington’s honesty.
This tale is not the only myth about Washington. His wooden dentures? They weren’t made of wood; they were made of hippopotamus teeth that had been filed down to fit into Washington’s mouth.
It’s also just a myth that George Washington confessed to chopping down a cherry tree. But the story inspired our delicious No-Lie Cherry Pie recipe! Plus, enjoy more cherry recipes.
Upon entering office, Washington was not convinced he was the right man for the job. He wrote, “My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” Fortunately for the young country, he was wrong.
Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. –George Washington (1732–99)
Do you do anything special to celebrate Presidents’ Day? Let us know in the comments!
Catherine Boeckmann is the Executive Digital Editor of Almanac.com, the website companion of The Old Farmer's Almanac. She covers gardening, plants, pest control, soil composition, seasonal and moon c...
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Speaker TBA
Seth Thibodeaux
Associate Head Baseball Coach - Baseball
University of Louisiana, Lafayette
Seth Thibodeaux begins his third season at Louisiana after joining the Ragin' Cajuns staff in August 2021 as Associate Head Coach/Pitching Coach.
Prior to his arrival, Thibodeaux served for 14 seasons - including the previous 11 years as head coach - at in-state program Nicholls. During his 11-year tenure on the Bayou, Thibodeaux recorded 287 wins to rank behind Mike Knight and former Louisiana Baseball coach Ray E. Didier in school history. In his first season in the Ragin' Cajuns dugout, the Church Point native handled a pitching staff which produced the Sun Belt Conference's lowest team ERA (4.24) while ranking among the SBC leaders in opposing batting average (.254), innings pitched (532.1), strikeouts (545), runs allowed (287) and earned runs allowed (251). The SBC weekend rotation of Brandon Talley, Jacob Schultz and Jeff Wilson produced 11 quality starts with 10 coming in the final 36 games of the season. Schultz led Louisiana in innings pitched (82.1) and led the Ragin' Cajuns into the SBC Championship game after a gutsy 142-pitch performance in a complete-game victory over nationally-ranked Texas State. His 2023 staff produced 10-game winner Cooper Rawls - the first Ragin' Cajuns 10-game winner since Gunner Leger in 2017 - and nine-game winner Jackson Nezuh. As a staff, the Ragin' Cajuns finished second overall in both team ERA (4.87), opponents batting average (.248) and innings pitched (569.2) while leading all SBC programs in fewest runs allowed (328) and shutouts (5). Thibodeaux's staff produced 14 quality starts on the season with Nezuh (4) and Jake Hammond (3) provided half of the total. Thibodeaux has served as the Ragin' Cajuns "Defensive Coordinator" since joining the staff and guided a group in 2022 which ranked among the league leaders in fielding percentage (.972) while finishing 18th nationally in double plays (51), 26th in earned run average (4.24) and 44th in hits allowed per nine innings (8.62). The 2023 edition of the Ragin' Cajuns produced the school's top fielding percentage (.982) - first in the Sun Belt and tied for fourth nationally. During Thibodeaux's tenure at Nicholls, the Colonels advanced to the Southland Conference Tournament on four occasions, securing the No. 2-seed in 2014 and the third seed in 2015. Thibodeaux helped develop four All-SLC first-team selections and along with six Major League Baseball draftees, two Southland Pitchers of the Year (Taylor Byrd – 2014, Justin Sinibaldi – 2015), a Relief Pitcher of the Year (Stuart Holmes, 2015) and a Newcomer of the Year (Kyle Reese, 2015). The long-time head coach revitalized the program behind back-to-back 30-plus win seasons in 2014 and 2015 – a first for Nicholls since the 1992-93 campaigns – as the Colonel pitching staffs consistently ranked as one of the nation's elite for ERA. During the 2014 season, Thibodeaux’s pitching staff produced a 2.61 team ERA during the season before notching a 2.47 team ERA the following season. The upstart Colonels’ squad of the 2014 season, who just a year prior only managed single-digit wins in league play, propelled Thibodeaux to Southland Coach of the Year as Nicholls finished with a school-best 21-9 mark in SLC competition. Before coming to Nicholls in 2008, Thibodeaux served two years as an assistant coach at SLC-rival Southeastern Louisiana, helping put together two recruiting classes which received national recognition from Baseball America. In his final season in Hammond, Thibodeaux helped SLU to 34 wins, the most for the Lions in a decade and a school-record 16 wins in Southland competition. Thibodeaux began his college coaching career at Pearl River Community College in 2003. In his second season at PRCC, Thibodeaux lifted the Wildcats to conference and state championship titles as well as a No. 2 national ranking in 2004. In 2005, Thibodeaux helped PRCC repeat as conference champs. Thibodeaux played two seasons at LSU-Eunice in 2000 before transferring to William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Miss., where he finished his collegiate career and earned his degree in physical education. After graduation, Thibodeaux played one season of professional baseball for the Baton Rouge Riverbats of the independent South East Professional Baseball League. He is married to the former Janelle Austrom who was a soccer and softball player at William Carey College. They are the parents of two daughters, Ella Reese and Blake Adelle. One of eight children, Thibodeaux has a brother, Mike, who is the former head baseball coach and five-time state champion at Lafayette's Teurlings Catholic High School.
Appalachian Land Institute
https://www.landman.org/events/energy-institutes/appalachian-land-institute.html
AAPL has once again partnered with the Michael Late Benedum Chapter of AAPL to bring intriguing education and tailored networking to the exciting Pittsburgh area!
Registration includes industry experts covering hot topics to the Appalachia region, breakfasts & lunch and a fun networking reception with fellow regional landmen. It all goes down at the Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh/Southpointe in Canonsburg.
At least 10 AAPL CEUs will be available. CLEs from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio will also be available.
Mining and Land Resources Institute
Stateline, NV
Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe
Harrah's Lake Tahoe
https://www.landman.org/events/energy-institutes/mining-and-land-resources-institute.html
Join us in beautiful Lake Tahoe for the 2026 MALRI! Topics include:
2026 LAPL TRIFECTA
SEMINAR: SPEAKERS TBA
CRAWFISH BOIL
GOLF TOURNAMENT
Memorial Day
HISTORY.com Editors
Published: October 27, 2009 Last Updated: May 28, 2025
Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2025 falls on Monday, May 26.
Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.
The Birthplace of Memorial Day and Early Observances
This holiday honors those who died while serving in the U.S. military.
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. And some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.
Did you know?
Each year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time.
Decoration Day
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.
The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there.
Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the dead on separate days until after World War I.
History of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Memorial Day Traditions and Rituals
Cities and towns across the United States host Memorial Day parades each year, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Some of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.
Americans also observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem. On a less somber note, many people take weekend trips or throw parties and barbecues on the holiday, perhaps because Memorial Day weekend—the long weekend comprising the Saturday and Sunday before Memorial Day and Memorial Day itself—unofficially marks the beginning of summer.
Fourth of July – Independence Day
Published: December 16, 2009Last Updated: June 30, 2025
The Fourth of July—also known as Independence Day or July 4th—has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941, but the tradition of Independence Day celebrations goes back to the 18th century and the American Revolution. On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, and two days later delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. From 1776 to the present day, July 4th has been celebrated as the birth of American independence, with festivities ranging from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues. The Fourth of July 2025 is on Friday, July 4.
History of Independence Day
When the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did were considered radical.
By the middle of the following year, however, many more colonists had come to favor independence, thanks to growing hostility against Britain and the spread of revolutionary sentiments such as those expressed in the bestselling pamphlet “Common Sense,” published by Thomas Paine in early 1776.
On June 7, when the Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies’ independence.
Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee’s resolution, but appointed a five-man committee—including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York—to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain.
John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
On July 4th, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which had been written largely by Jefferson. Though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd, from then on the 4th became the day that was celebrated as the birth of American independence.
Early Fourth of July Celebrations and Traditions
In the pre-Revolutionary years, colonists had held annual celebrations of the king’s birthday, which traditionally included the ringing of bells, bonfires, processions and speechmaking. By contrast, during the summer of 1776 some colonists celebrated the birth of independence by holding mock funerals for King George III as a way of symbolizing the end of the monarchy’s hold on America and the triumph of liberty.
Festivities including concerts, bonfires, parades and the firing of cannons and muskets, usually accompanied the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence, beginning immediately after its adoption. Philadelphia held the first annual commemoration of independence on July 4, 1777, while Congress was still occupied with the ongoing war.
George Washington issued double rations of rum to all his soldiers to mark the anniversary of independence in 1778, and in 1781, several months before the key American victory at the Battle of Yorktown, Massachusetts became the first state to make July 4th an official state holiday.
After the Revolutionary War, Americans continued to commemorate Independence Day every year, in celebrations that allowed the new nation’s emerging political leaders to address citizens and create a feeling of unity. By the last decade of the 18th century, the two major political parties—the Federalist Party and Democratic-Republicans—that had arisen began holding separate Fourth of July celebrations in many large cities.
Fourth of July Fireworks
The first fireworks were used as early as 200 BC. The tradition of setting off fireworks on the 4 of July began in Philadelphia on July 4, 1777, during the first organized celebration of Independence Day. Ship’s cannon fired a 13-gun salute in honor of the 13 colonies. The Pennsylvania Evening Post reported: “at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.” That same night, the Sons of Liberty set off fireworks over Boston Common.
Fourth of July Becomes a Federal Holiday
The tradition of patriotic celebration became even more widespread after the War of 1812, in which the United States again faced Great Britain. In 1870, the U.S. Congress made July 4th a federal holiday; in 1941, the provision was expanded to grant a paid holiday to all federal employees.
Over the years, the political importance of the holiday would decline, but Independence Day remained an important national holiday and a symbol of patriotism.
Falling in mid-summer, the Fourth of July has since the late 19th century become a major focus of leisure activities and a common occasion for family get-togethers, often involving fireworks and outdoor barbecues. The most common symbol of the holiday is the American flag, and a common musical accompaniment is “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States.
Date to be confirmed; Location and Cost (TBA)
Lafayette Association of Professional Landmen, Inc.
P.O. Box 53491, Lafayette, LA 70505
