Today is Father’s Day, so naturally, well wishes are extended to all Beaufort County fathers. It’s the day to show all dads appreciation, a day created in counterpoint to Mother’s Day. It’s a holiday that came to us courtesy of President Richard Nixon.

That was 1972, whereas Mother’s Day had been a federal holiday for over half a century.

There are some that say fathers just don’t have the sentimental appeal that moms have, which is why it took so long to make fathers day an actual day on the calendar every year. Many would agree that over 70 million fathers in the U.S. are harder to buy for than moms.

One woman started the campaign for the day acknowledging fathers over a century ago. In Spokane, Wash., a woman name Sonora Smart Dodd — one of six children raised by her widower father — decided dads deserved just as much recognition as moms. She campaigned for an official holiday and in 1910, the state of Washington celebrated its first Father’s Day and from there, the holiday began to spread.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson honored the day, pressing a button in Washington, D.C., that signaled the unfurling of a U.S. flag in Spokane by telegraph. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged people to celebrate dads across the U.S.

But there was plenty of resistance to the idea of a day for dad: according to a historian of the times people “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products — often paid for by the father himself.”

It was advertisers that pushed the issue to the point where it was, essentially, accepted when it was promoted as a way to support the war effort during World War II — and a way to honor American troops.

By the time Nixon signed the proclamation, Father’s Day was already a national institution.

Though advertisers might have sealed the deal, the sentiment of Dodd is what the holiday is about. More stuff for the grill, a new tie, some sports tickets are all great. But the best gift any dad can receive from his loved ones is the gift of their appreciation, their time and their company.

Happy Father’s Day to all Beaufort County dads!