heft claimed to have designed the current united states flag as a school project in lancaster, ohio, when he was 17 years old. he received a b- for his project from his teacher, stanley pratt. after talking about the project, he reached an agreement with his teacher that, if the flag was selected as the official flag by the united states congress, he would get a better grade for the project. heft stated that his design was chosen out of more than 1,500 designs that were given to united states president dwight d. eisenhower, and his teacher changed his grade to an a. this claim is now in dispute and is believed to be a hoax.