In 1994 Joe Mardesich and I owned New World Mortgage, a very cool mortgage company engaged in a very boring industry. When I was 18 years old, I fell in love with America’s rich history, our founding documents and our founding fathers. So I decided I would spice up our mortgage company offices with those very things. This began a four-year saga to locate frameable copies of our founding documents and pictures from the founding of our nation. It was harder than I ever imagined. I ended up having to go to the National Archives, Yale University, The Metropolitan Museum in New York and many, many other institutions, businesses and people. After I finally got the documents and art pieces I wanted, I vowed to make these items more accessible to Americans. Our history should not be lost.

In 1999, after I had sold the mortgage company and quit the financial industry, I began a company called USA Freedom Memorabilia. My vision was still small. Shortly after that I met Jim Proctor who encouraged me to put the images into a chronological gallery and write storyboards for each image to recount our nation’s founding. He encouraged me to provide the gallery to individuals, schools and public buildings. This we did, and the Freedom Gallery was birthed.

Since then we have changed our name to Roots of Freedom, and we have expanded our offering. In 2005 I met Bonnie Busco, a recently retired 5th grade teacher, and she and I began writing a curriculum to go along with our Freedom Gallery. The curriculum is called Cries of Freedom and follows the Freedom Gallery with 76 lessons with most of them being readers’ theaters. We constructed quizzes and tests and fun activities that can be used in a classroom or at home. Bonnie and I also created a simulation for immigration through Ellis Island with a souvenir passport and Milestones of Freedom to become a “True American”; a simulation of the Second Continental Congress with Delegate Credentials to become a “Founding Patriot”; and a simulation of the Constitutional Convention with Delegate Credentials on how to become a “Founding Father.” Several more simulations are on the docket to be created.

In 2008 Bonnie and I wrote a musical called “Cries of Freedom” chronicling historical stories of people who struggled for freedom. It is a truly inspirational musical that begins with Joan of Arc and ends with what we must do now to remain free. About this same time I renewed my friendship with an old high school friend, Wade Alexander. He began working with me and became the narrator of our new musical. We perform this musical every year during the Independence Day celebrations as part of America’s Freedom Festival in Provo, Utah. Bonnie directed the musical through 2023 when she retired after our fifteenth season. One of our long-time cast members, Krista Johannesmeyer, became our director. We perform “Cries of Freedom” in the historic SCERA Center for the Arts building which is located on the land my great-grandfather, Otto Poulson; my grandfather, Leo Poulson; and my mother, Karma Poulson Swain, lived on and farmed.

Today we are trying to make America great again in our own way–by returning to the Roots of our Freedom and reconstructing real freedom, the way it was intended to be. We truly believe that the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and Bill of Rights of America are still the best blueprints for success and that we should return to them post-haste.

We would love to support you in helping to restore true principles of freedom to you, your family, your school, your community and whatever other institutions you would like to enliven with correct and exciting principles of freedom! You can see some of our videos at https://www.youtube.com/@rootsoffreedom. All the best to you my fellow sojourner.