Elks Flag Day Celebration
Central City Lodge hosts district event
The Colorado Central Northwest District (CCND) of The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America presented a Flag Day Ceremony on Sunday, June 13, at 10:00 a.m. in the Miller-Headrick Auditorium of the Gilpin County schools. The Elks host lodge for the event was Central City #557 with Exalted Ruler D’Lynn Morse and her officers presiding over the ceremony.
The sparkling John Phillips Sousa Band opened the service with a rousing medley of patriotic songs, including George M. Cohan’s “You’re A Grand Old Flag” written in 1906 as a tribute to the U.S. flag. Small American flags were distributed to the audience as they entered the auditorium and they waved their flags with zeal in time to the marching beat of the songs. The band provided more patriotic music intermittently throughout the ceremony.
Bagpiper Ethan Smith, dressed in full Scots regalia, performed “America the Beautiful” and ended his selection with a wistful rendition of “Amazing Grace,” a Christian hymn first published in 1779. Members of the audience were visibly touched by the beautiful mournful music.
Once the Color Guard installed the American flag, everyone faced it, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then singing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Central City Lodge Chaplain Ron Engels conducted a prayer requesting that “through the years to come may this flag wave as a banner of liberty, freedom and enlightenment.”
Don Treese of the Central City Lodge performed a welcome and introductions, noting that a celebration honoring the flag on Flag Day was mandated by the Elks Grand Lodge in 1908. The Central Northwest District held some of their previous celebrations in one of the ten member lodges such as Arvada, Evergreen, Golden, Idaho Springs, Lakewood, Northglenn, and Westminster, as the ceremony rotates among the district lodges. It has been more than ten years since a Flag Day Ceremony was hosted by the Central City Lodge.
Morse followed with introductory remarks on the purpose of the ceremony in honoring our flag, celebrating the anniversary of its birth and recalling the achievements “attained beneath its folds.” Troy Young of Northglenn Lodge #2438 presented a history of the American flag. With the founding of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 to 1775, when the 13 colonies united against the British Empire during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), the flag of the peoples of America was the flag of England. Flags representing each specific time period were carried across the stage during the presentation.
In 1775 the Pine Tree flag was adopted for all colonial vessels and carried by colonial forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. In the latter part of 1775 the Continental Congress governing the united colonies created “The Grand Union” flag, which bore a design of 13 alternating stripes of red and white with an azure field in the upper corner containing red and white crosses. From 1776 to 1777 the Southern colonies used the Snake flag, a yellow banner depicting a striking rattlesnake with the words “Don’t Tread On Me” underneath it.
In 1776 the Congress declared, “That the Flag of the United States be thirteen stripes of alternating red and white; and that the union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” This new banner, “The Stars and Stripes,” was more representative of the young nation.
In 1818 the Congress adopted a resolution for the flag: that the number of stripes should be thirteen and that the blue field should carry a star for each of the twenty stars in the nation with a new star to be added for each admitted state thereafter. Our present flag bears the thirteen stripes and fifty stars, one for each state in the union.
The last flag presented was the white-on-black POW/MIA Flag, recognized by the Congress in 1990 as a symbolic public expression of concern for all U.S. Prisoners of War and Missing in Action military personnel.
At the conclusion of the presentation the audience stood and sang “God Bless America.”
As the flag was folded, Mark Thomas read the poem, “My Name is Old Glory,” written in 1983:
I am the flag of the United States of America
My name is Old Glory….
I stand for peace, honor, truth, and justice.
I stand for freedom….
I have fought every battle of every war for more than 200 years…
Gettysburg, Shiloh, Appomattox, San Juan Hill, the trenches of France,…
the rice paddies and jungles of Guam, Okinawa, Japan, Korea, Vietnam,
and a score of places long forgotten by all but those who were with me….
I have slipped the bonds of Earth
and stand watch over the uncharted new frontiers of space
from my vantage point on the moon….
I have been a silent witness to all of America’s finest hours.
But my finest hour comes
when I am torn into strips to be used for bandages
for my wounded comrades on the field of battle….
I am proud.
My name is Old Glory.
Dear God . . . Long may I wave!
On the left of the stage a black empty chair was draped with a POW/MIA cloth and placed next to a small table covered with a white tablecloth and other symbolic items. The empty chair symbolized missing members of the Armed Forces.
The guest speaker was Major John Rittenhouse, USAF (Ret.), of the Central City Lodge, who spoke about the significance and influence of the flag over the years,”…symbolizing the divine right of all to life, liberty, happiness and peace.” He also thanked the veterans for serving their country and recognized military personnel serving today.
The Flag Day Ceremony concluded with the retiring of the colors.
Afterward the Central City Elks provided a delicious barbeque lunch at their lodge which was well-attended by members of the community and their guests.
After lunch a Flag Retirement Ceremony was conducted by the Northglenn Lodge #2438 in the parking lot behind the Central City Lodge. This is an annual event performed by the Elks to honorably retire U.S. flags with dignity and respect when they are worn and no longer serviceable.
The U.S. Flag Code states, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning”. For the Ceremony the Elks built a wood fire in a large metal drum.
The rite began with a ceremonial three-volley gun salute using blank cartridges by a rifle party composed of members of the American Legion Post #2001 of Evergreen. Members of the Northglenn Lodge completed a decorous ritual opening and the first flag presented for retirement was a POW/MIA one, which was saluted as it burned.
As the fire was carefully stoked in the drum, a line of participants formed to retrieve folded flags of various sizes from a bin. Each participant gingerly dropped a flag into the barrel to be incinerated. A participant commented that it was bizarre to be burning the flag she held in her hands. Most of the flags were made of cotton and burned easily while flags of nylon or other cotton blends were more difficult to burn.
Central City Lodge member Don Treese held two worn nylon flags from the school. Nylon flags wear better in the wind than cotton or blends and since the location of the school receives a lot of wind, he said it makes sense to supply the school with nylon flags.
The Retirement Ceremony closed when the last of the flags was burned.
The Flag Day Ceremony presented by the Elks was an exceptionally inspiring event as it was steeped in a traditional grandeur seldom experienced in today’s modern celebrations. The CCND Elks Flag Day Ceremony in 2011 is tentatively scheduled to take place in Golden and if it’s anything like this year’s ceremony, take the time to attend and enjoy it. Thank you to the Elks for honoring our nation’s flag on Flag Day.