John de Graaf
Veteran public television producer John de Graaf is the director of “From Sea to Shining Sea: Katharine Lee Bates and the Story of America the Beautiful,” currently screening at film festivals and distributed by Bullfrog Films. He spent 31 years at Channel 9 in Seattle, producing many documentaries, including a biography of labor activist Terry Pettus (see Jean Godden’s recent Post Alley story about Pettus).
The Surprising Origins of America’s Best-Loved, Most Misunderstood Song
This July 22 marks the 132nd anniversary of the day in 1893 when the first stanzas of the popular anthem “America the Beautiful” were written in Colorado by Katharine Lee Bates, a Massachusetts-born poet, scholar and social justice advocate.