The National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation is a ceremony that takes place at the White House every year shortly before Thanksgiving. The president of the United States is presented with a live domestic turkey by the National Turkey Federation (NTF), usually males of the Broad Breasted White variety. The early years also included a joint presentation with the Poultry and Egg National Board. The ceremony dates back to the 1940s; these turkeys were usually slaughtered and eaten (with some exceptions) prior to the 1970s, when it became standard practice to spare the turkey. During the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, it became a tradition (since carried on by all of Bush's successors) for the president to issue a ceremonial "pardon" to the turkey. It is a tradition that the turkeys be picked from the chairperson of the NTF's home state, occasionally from the chair's own farm. History Turkeys had been donated to the President as gifts from private citizens. Horace Vose, a Rhode Island turkey farmer, presented a dressed turkey to the President each year from 1873 until his death in 1913. In 1913, South Trimble, a Kentucky farmer and Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, presented a turkey to then-President Woodrow Wilson that year, convinced that his red pepper-fed but smaller turkey tasted better than Vose's; no record survives of which turkey Wilson chose. This, along with Vose's death that December, set off a free-for-all in which numerous farmers tried to be the one to supply the annual holiday turkeys to the President. The rivalry escalated in the Roaring Twenties, with a group of women Warren G. Harding supporters from Chicago sending Harding turkeys (including in 1920 when he was still President-Elect and at the Panama Canal Zone; the turkey was delivered by train), while Cuero, Texas also sent Wilson and Harding turkeys. The Cuero turkeys were notable for being the first to be sent while still alive; the Wilson administration slaughtered and ate the bird. Calvin Coolidge, alarmed at the number of turkeys being offered to the President at the time, briefly stopped the tradition upon assuming office in 1923 and chose to buy his own turkey; he relented in 1925 and was soon bombarded with an unusual array of animals to eat, including Rebecca, a live raccoon that Coolidge received in 1926 and, unwilling to eat it, designated as a White House pet. The official