TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd unveiled a statue of George Washington at the State Capitol Building on Thursday.
The bronze statue — sculpted in 1996 by Robert Shure, a replica of the piece commissioned in the late 1700s from French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon for viewing in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda — will stand in Florida’s Capitol Rotunda for a year in the leadup to the nation’s 250th anniversary, DeSantis said during a brief news conference.
“Florida embraces this 250th anniversary that we’ll be celebrating in 2026. We’re starting this year, there’s going to be things that we do all throughout 2025 leading up to the semiquincentennial next year, all the way through July 4th of 2026. While others are tearing statues down, we are putting statues up to honor the heroes of our republic and our great history,” DeSantis said. “(...) This is just the opening salvo of what we’re going to be doing. We fully anticipate being able to do similar commemorations in the counties where you have named Founding Fathers — so, Washington County, Hamilton County, Madison County, Jefferson County, Franklin County, and then all the way down south in Monroe County — and we will be doing other things over the next year and a half.”
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Watch the news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.
DeSantis on Wednesday was appointed by President Donald Trump to the Council of Governors alongside the governors of nine other states.
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