Time to celebrate the flag
MAUREEN DOLAN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 13 years, 7 months AGO
COEUR d'ALENE - Today's the day Americans are called upon to collectively heed the words of George M. Cohan.
"Keep your eye on the grand old flag."
It's National Flag Day, the 234th anniversary of the day in 1777 when the Continental Congress in Philadelphia resolved that "the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation."
Members of Coeur d'Alene Elks Lodge 1254, 1170 W. Prairie Ave., will host their annual Flag Day ceremony tonight at 7 and the public is invited.
"We're the first and only fraternal organization to require formal observance of Flag Day," said Deb Nadrchal, the Coeur d'Alene lodge's secretary.
The ceremony will commemorate the history of the flag, and will include a presentation of 13 banners that have flown as symbols of the United States.
The flags will be carried out for display by Civil Air Patrol cadets from Hayden.
From the Pine Tree Flag that flew from colonial vessels in 1775 to today's 50-starred banner, the history and evolution of the U.S. flag will be presented.
"If people have flags they want to retire, they can bring them to us," Nadrchal said.
A ceremonial burning of old and damaged flags will be held during the program.
Last year, the lodge helped retire 108 flags for members of the public. Those not burned during the ceremony were given to a local crematorium for proper retirement, Nadrchal said.
Similar celebrations of the Stars and Stripes will be held today by lodges throughout the nation.
The observance of flag day is closely tied to Elks history.
The Elks set a rule for themselves in 1908 that all lodges must hold Flag Day observance ceremonies.
According to Elks history, it was their group's formal patriotic expression of Flag Day that prompted President Woodrow Wilson to issue a proclamation in 1916 calling for a national observance.
It was not until 1949, that President Truman, himself a member of the Elks, signed an Act of Congress designating the 14th of June every year as National Flag Day.
ARTICLES BY MAUREEN DOLAN
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