Hi Jennifer,
Happy that you are liking the plugin.
Regarding “published date” it is a date which is insignificant and of no use.
It is simply a date provided by WordPress to know when the announcement was first “published”. It has no other purpose.
If you want to schedule the announcement to show only within certain date range, then please look at the “schedule dates” alone.
You can look at the “scheduled date” in the announcer list like below.
Thanks,
Aakash