Okinawa, Japan, January 1962: Melissa McDonald, 12, a seventh grade student at Mercy Intermediate School, Okinawa, displays a letter from the White House. The seventh-grade student at Mercy Intermediate School in Okinawa received the letter in December as a reply to a letter she sent to President John F. Kennedy the month prior to express her appreciation for the President’s physical fitness program, now under way at all American schools.

The letter, typed on White House stationery, was signed by Ralph A. Dungan, one of President Kennedy’s special assistants. It read, in part: “You were certainly thoughtful to write the President such a friendly letter, and he asked me to express his thanks. The nice things you said mean a great deal to him.” Melissa is the daughter of Lt. and Mrs. Raymond M. McDonald. McDonald is assigned aboard the seaplane tender Currituck, presently moored at White Beach in northern Okinawa.

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