. >>> on this day in 1814 francis scott key was inspired to write a poem during the battle of baltimore which later became the lyrics to "the star spangled banner. " >>> tonight be sure to watch brian williams with "nbc nightly news." >>> finally, here's a look at what's coming up later this morning on the "today" show. ann curry reports live from iran as the families of those american hikers await word on their release. and matt lauer talks to dr. phil about his revealing interview with casey anthony's parents. >>> now keep it on this channel for continuing local news, weather, sports and more. i'm vinita nair. thanks for watching "early today," just your stop of the day today on your nbc station. have a good one.

half destroyed and had to be ready by the start of school and fortunately, one of the schools, francis scott key, for example, the principal lives across the street, that makes things easier, but in general, some phenomenal support and from all the teachers in the district who had to move and remove and pack and unpack and most of them did it with a smile on their face and a grace and a sense of help that sort of meant a lot to the entire spirit of cooperation to kind of make happen what we need to make happen system of what i want to do is sort of give you a pictorial kind of presentation of what we did this summer with a few slides, some background data. i want to see if our expert in the back can, when i do this, will call it up on the screen, i'm used to projecting on the wall, so we'll see. is he going to make it go up? or is he asleep? ok. so this is susan gave me the title, beyond the talk, because that's our theme for the last few years, modernizing our schools to inspire learning. just as a highlight of the summer of 2011, we had 35 major modernization projects at 35 sites. we wrote che

american names around the table included andrew jackson, his nemesis, daniel webster, james monroe, francis scott key -- how popular west the american movement in this country? >> it was extremely popular. he gets federal funding to buy the land. he promotes the idea of resettling african-americans in haiti and canada. he is known for this. he becomes a lightning rod in a free black community in the north, because this is what causes them to unite against henry clay, in the sense of why should we have to believe the -- why should we have to leave the united states? >> liberia was a death trap, and the people in america had been slaves, their forefathers had been here a lot longer than a lot of the white owners, so they were more american in a sense >> no connections to after a whatsoever, and the fact that clay was trying to remove primarily free blacks from the country, not slaves. that was another controversial point. >> i am going to introduce a third person to our discussion. haslett is open for tours and interpret saliva of henry clay. we have a special guest, 80 malone, the director of store op

. >> next up, we have david wong from francis scott key. [applause] >> all right. >> i know what is thre. >> -- there. >> you got this, in the envelope, morton's steakhouse dinner. and a night at the opera. >> thank you very much. i hvaave a speech iwrote last night. -- i wrote last night. people say principals have the toughest job. i will say, this job is jsut as challenging as it is rewarding. it is hard to believe i have done this for 19 years. this job presents many challenges, and i have to say that this kept my heart young. i really enjoyed doing my job. some days are more challenging than the others. but in the 19 years -- i never had one day i never wanted to come to school. i accumulated over 200 days of sick days. i would donate this to one of the teachers in need. what kept me going, this is the smile that i see at school. the staff and the parents and students, the things that kept me going all year. i am here to receive this award by i am very humbled by this honor. there are many out there who were just as deserving. and we a