You’d have to be at least a baby boomer or an older Gen Xer to have a clear memory of the U.S. bicentennial celebration in 1976.
But those who do remember the mid-1970s may recall a surge of patriotism around the bicentennial unmatched since the end of the world wars earlier in the 20th century.
Chattanooga newspapers of the mid-1970s covered the run-up to the bicentennial year with great energy.
For example, this photo, featuring Miss Chattanooga 1976 Melanie Howle (now Melanie Gaston Underwood of Cleveland, Tennessee), appeared on the front page of the Chattanooga News-Free Press on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1975.
“I don’t remember looking like that,” Underwood said in a telephone interview this week. “I don’t remember having the photo taken. Nobody ever showed it to me.”