New London — The U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of 1969 unveiled its golden reunion gift to the academy — a monument featuring a sculpture of George Washington — during a ceremony Friday on the parade grounds named for the nation's first president.

The sculpture, a reproduction of the 1792 statue created by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon that stands in the rotunda of the Virginia statehouse, is accompanied by reproductions in bronze of four key documents that highlight Washington's role in the founding of the agencies that would become the present-day Coast Guard.

Retired Capt. Fred Schmitt and Class of '69 member Robert Pokress spoke to the importance of Washington's creation of the U.S. Lighthouse Service a year prior to the creation of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service in establishing the maritime safety mission of the Coast Guard, as well as Washington's commitment to nonpatronage appointment of positions in the new federal government.

Schmitt also introduced a new tradition, which the class is hoping the academy will adopt, of having the newly commissioned ensigns saluting the statue as the Revenue Cutter Service's first officer, Hopley Yeaton, would have saluted Washington in 1791.