{"id":24851,"date":"2022-09-08T23:10:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T03:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=24851"},"modified":"2022-09-08T23:12:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T03:12:05","slug":"the-city-of-lakeland-will-be-forever-bonded-to-queen-elizabeth-ii-through-the-gift-of-royal-swans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/09\/08\/the-city-of-lakeland-will-be-forever-bonded-to-queen-elizabeth-ii-through-the-gift-of-royal-swans\/","title":{"rendered":"The City of Lakeland will be forever bonded to Queen Elizabeth II through the gift of royal swans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, 96, her memory will live on through the swans of Lake Morton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBecause of Queen Elizabeth, we have that iconic swan here and we are paired with the Queen because of those swans,\u201d said Kevin Cook, communications director for the city of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story dates back roughly one century when Lakeland\u2019s swan population died off in the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A few decades later, a request came from some Lakeland natives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a couple from Lakeland that was actually living in England that wrote a letter to the Queen asking if she would be gracious enough to donate a swan pair, a pair of swans and she did,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper clippings from 1957<\/a> detailed the anticipation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The headlines read \u201cOur Royal Swans Held in England\u201d and \u201cRoyal Swans Due by Plane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A letter described what Queen Elizabeth II expected of the city of Lakeland when it accepted the pair of royal swans.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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 \u201cShe donated the swans but she said we had to pay to have the swans shipped by ship back then to the city of Lakeland,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city paid $300 for the swans\u2019 travel and they came home to Lake Morton.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From there, Swan City was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have the iconic swan that\u2019s a part of the fabric of Lakeland. They live on Lake Morton. It\u2019s almost a rite of passage for people to come down and feed the swans, especially if you\u2019re from here you know that,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the dozens of royal swan descendants in and around Lake Morton, swan statues and logos are sprinkled throughout the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe have Queen Elizabeth to thank for that thank goodness,\u201d said Petra Sussman, who lives in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The royal swans, a gift from the longest-reigning British monarch, help Sussman to clear her mind while she\u2019s taking strolls around Lake Morton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really helps to have swans swimming and keeping me calm,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very, very, very glad that we have them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, 96, her memory will live on through the swans of Lake Morton. \u201cBecause of Queen Elizabeth, we have that iconic swan here and we… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[3371],"class_list":["post-24851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-the-city-of-lakeland-will-be-forever-bonded-to-queen-elizabeth-ii-through-the-gift-of-royal-swans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}