MOUNT VERNON — The Mount Vernon Post Office will offer a special commemorative stamp cancellation in honor of the Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival. The special design will be available upon request today through Saturday.
The design was the brainchild of Donald Cline, a Fredericktown letter carrier. Cline has designed a special cancellation for the Fredericktown Tomato Show for the last eight years.
“This year they had someone else do it,” said Cline. “So I did one for Mount Vernon this year.”
The design shows a fiddle with a number of music notation symbols. Cline said the idea was a pretty easy one for him.
“I did some research and found out his favorite instruments were violins and flutes,” Cline explained. “I wanted to put on the first four notes of ‘Dixie,’ but didn’t have room.”
Cline said it didn’t take him long to finish the design.
“I worked on it a couple of days off and on,” he said. “When I did the research for the design, I was impressed with how famous Dan Emmett was. It’s interesting to find such a local connection for such a famous person.”
Art has been a passion for Cline for most of his life. The Fredericktown High School graduate said he took art all through school. He works in a variety of genres.
“I do painting, engraving, carving and glass etching,” he said. “I always liked art.”
The special stamp cancellation will be available only at the Mount Vernon Post Office, during working hours. The cancellation will be done today, Friday and Saturday. Postal regulations also allow the cancellation to be done by special request for collection purposes for 30 days after the event. It is available for regular mail or for collection purposes.
Anyone wanting the commemorative cancellation for their collection only can put a stamp on an envelope with their own address on it so it can be mailed back to them, or they can send the envelope to the post office with a stamped return envelope large enough to hold the canceled envelope. The cancellation will not be available for sending mail after the festival.