bettTFXC Retired🖤💛

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

Happy Global Running Day to all of our former and current Bulldogs and runners everywhere! #runhappyforever

[Bett High School @BettHighSchool]

Please join us in welcoming back the Bettendorf Boys Track Team as we celebrate their incredible 2nd Place finish at the State Meet!

📍 Bettendorf High School Performing Arts Center
📅 Sunday, May 31, 2026
⏰ 1 pm

BettPride!

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Most Americans have no idea where Memorial Day actually came from.

It was not invented by Congress. It was not handed down by a president. It was built from the ground up by ordinary citizens standing over the graves of men who gave everything for this country.

The Civil War ended in April 1865. It cost roughly 750,000 American lives, more than every other war this nation has fought combined. Every town had empty chairs at the dinner table. Every county had fresh graves. The wounds were everywhere.

And out of that grief, something uniquely American happened. Without any federal order, communities across the country, North and South, began visiting cemeteries in the spring of 1866 to lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers. Waterloo, New York. Columbus, Mississippi. Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. Carbondale, Illinois. Charleston, South Carolina. Dozens of towns later claimed to be the birthplace of the tradition, because the tradition rose up in dozens of places at once.

That is the point. Nobody told Americans to honor their dead. They just did it.

On May 5, 1868, a Union general named John A. Logan, then commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, recognized what the country was already doing and made it official. He issued General Order No. 11, designating May 30th as a day "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."

He chose May 30th for a simple reason. It was not the anniversary of any battle. He wanted a day that belonged to all the fallen, not to any single victory or defeat.

They called it Decoration Day.

The first national observance was held at Arlington National Cemetery, on land that had been seized from Robert E. Lee's family and turned into the resting place of Union dead. 5,000 people showed up. James Garfield, a future president, gave the speech. Children from a nearby orphanage for the children of dead soldiers walked through the rows of graves placing flowers on every single headstone, Union and Confederate alike.

That last detail matters. From the very beginning, Americans understood that the dead belonged to the country, not to a side.

After World War I, the holiday expanded to honor the fallen of every American war. In 1971, it officially became Memorial Day and was moved to the last Monday in May.

But the core never changed. It is one of the only holidays in the world founded not by decree but by grief. A nation of citizens who chose, on their own, to remember.

This Memorial Day, remember what it actually is. Not a long weekend. Not a sale at the mall. A promise. That the men and women who died for this country will never be forgotten by the country they died for.

Pass it on.

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

Congratulations to AJ for an all-time Iowa best and to Andrew Heden for breaking 9 and earning 7th in a loaded field!

[Bound Iowa @Bound_IA]

1ST AND 2ND BREAK THE ALL-TIME 3200 RECORD 🤯

🥇: AJ Willey (Bettendorf) - 8:49.65
🥈: Slader Buckheister (Kennedy) - 8:49.97

#iahstrk

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@MrKeithBHS Way to go AJ and Andrew!

[Jon Keith @MrKeithBHS]

Congrats AJ!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BettGirls_TF That’s an outstanding evening and a prelude to a great district meet upcoming! Congratulations to all the Bulldogs!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BettGirls_TF Congratulations, Tatum, on a new school record! That’s an incredible feat!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BlueDevilXC Congratulations, Dylan!!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@lady_valor_07 Melody. Gertrude. Harriet. Gladys.

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@Here_s_Hoping Could you have them framed?

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BettGirls_TF Awesome!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BettGirls_TF Way to go, Haley!!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@luxemiaa C could switch with G if it was a big big deal since G looks like an aisle too. Otherwise good for you!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@BettGirls_TF Best of luck!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

That’s former Bulldog Anna Peer sporting the new Puma racing kit!

[RoriDunk @FitzDunk]

Puma drop their 2026 competition kit 🩱

🌸🌻

👍 or 👎

[RoriDunk @FitzDunk]

Puma drop their 2026 competition kit 🩱

🌸🌻

👍 or 👎

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@ThrillaRilla369 Wendy’s actually😂😂

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@CCPISASSH0E Enjoy every second of watching your kids compete With their classmates. You can always cheer on their friends! It goes by fast!

[bettTFXC Retired🖤💛 @bettTFXC]

@TannerLafever @HuesmannKyle @IowaW_Wrestling Congratulations, Ella! You will make a positive influence on the lives of your athletes in the wrestling room and outside of the mat.