Emily Beltz, 7, has been named the 2017 Tamaqua American Legion Poppy Queen.

The daughter of Richard and Jennifer Beltz of Tamaqua, she is the granddaughter of Richard and Loretta Beltz of Quakake, Greg Hartshorne of Tamaqua and the late Kay Hartshorne.Beltz is a second-grade student attending Tamaqua Area Elementary School and is a junior member of the C.H. Berry Unit 173 Tamaqua American Legion Auxiliary. She is a member of Brownie Troop 30060 of Tamaqua, Grier City Sunday school and the Tamaqua Area Youth Soccer League. A student at Dance Explosion in Nesquehoning for five years, she can be found helping at the Legion's breakfasts.The American Legion family adopted the red poppy as a way to memorialize the soldiers who fought and died in the battlefields in Europe during World War I. The distribution of poppies became a national event in 1924.The poppy was chosen as the symbol of the war's bloodshed after Canadian physician Lt. Col. John McCrae wrote the poem "In Flanders Field" in 1915 after presiding over the funeral of a friend and fellow soldier. The flowers were flourishing in France and Belgium, due, according to scientists, to the increased lime in the soil. The lime increase was determined to be cause by the rubble created by battles. The poem was first published on Dec. 8, 1915, and has become one of the most popular, quoted poems of the war.It has become a mainstay of American Memorial Day services.