In 1912, Secretary of State Earle Hodges and the Pine Bluff chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution sponsored a competition to create Arkansas’s first official state flag after Arkansans had lived under many unofficial flags and banners since 1819. About sixty-five designs were submitted, featuring symbols such as diamonds, cotton, trees, apple blossoms, bears, a crescent moon, steamboats, and the motto “I’ll Try, Sir!” In the end, the Flag Selection Committee chose a simple diamond design by Jefferson County school teacher Willie Kavanaugh Hocker. She said its red, white, and blue reflected the U.S. flag, the twenty-five stars in the diamond border marked Arkansas as the twenty-fifth state admitted to the Union, the diamond represented Arkansas as the nation’s only diamond-producing state, and the three centered stars symbolized the three nations that had ruled Arkansas—Spain, France, and the United States—as well as Arkansas’s being the third state created from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The committee then rearranged the stars and added the word “Arkansas,” allowing a further reference to the traditional “twin” relationship between Arkansas and Michigan, which entered the Union about seven months apart and helped maintain the balance between free and slave states in Congress. On February 26, 1913, the state legislature approved the design as the official flag. The flag remained unchanged until 1923, when the Arkansas Legislature added a fourth star to commemorate Arkansas’s membership in the Confederacy. In 1924, at Miss Hocker’s suggestion, the stars were rearranged to one above and three below, creating the Arkansas flag that flies today.