Thursday is Flag Day.
In many ways, it has become a lost holiday.
It isn't one of the big six that almost everyone observes, that are considered paid days off for most full-time employees. It isn't a federal holiday. It doesn't get attached to a weekend to provide a three-day break. Other holidays have raised their profiles over the years, leaving Flag Day lost in the crowd.
A lot of people won't even know it is Flag Day on Thursday unless they are told, and then it might be greeted with little more than a shrug. Retailers aren't enamored with it enough to create sales events around it.
It's not something schools incorporate into lesson plans because, well, schools are out of session.
There just aren't many people carrying the Flag Day banner anymore.
In Texarkana there may be a bit more awareness. Each year the local Rotary club and its partners put American flags all over town to commemorate the day. It is part of a package of flags they put up and take down on major patriotic holidays, supported by businesses, public institutions and individuals alike, with proceeds used to support the chapter's community service projects.
If you get around town at all on the days the Rotarians plant their fields with the red, white and blue, you'll know something is going on. It is impossible to miss all the displays lining streets and buildings.
So now, on Thursday, you will know exactly what: It is Flag Day. Know this, too. Flag Day is celebrated on June 14 each year.
The roots of the holiday go back more than 80 years, and the point in history the holiday is commemorating goes back more than 240 years.
Flag Day observes Congress's adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, according to The National Flag Day Foundation.
The effort to create this holiday goes back to the same day in 1885, when a 19-year-old Wisconsin teacher put a small U.S. flag on his desk and assigned essays to his students on the flag and its importance. (School in June? Essay assignments? I bet the students loved that!)
At the time, the flag only had 38 stars.
From then on, Bernard J. Cigrand spent much of his life passionately working to promote Flag Day and gain official recognition.
He was not alone. Several others, many of them in the Northeast, had similar notions and were pushing for similar commemoration.
Cigrand was 50 when President Woodrow Wilson, on May 30, 1916, issued a proclamation calling for the national observance of Flag Day. Thirty-three years, via an Act of Congress, President Harry Truman made it officially official, deeming June 14 of every year National Flag Day.
Some places still go whole hog for the day, and some towns have parades that date back half a century or more.
In in 2004, Congress passed a bill, unanimously, establishing Ozaukee County, Waubeka Wisconsin, as the place where Flag Day originated.
For this small unincorporated place-population less than 1,000-this recognition had to have been the finial at the top of the community flagpole. And Stony Hill School, where it all began, is now considered a historical site, a well-deserved honor.
Okay, that was your pep talk and history lesson. Here is the attached commercial. Please don't tune out:
On Thursday, in addition to all the Stars and Stripes flying around town, Texarkana College and the Texarkana Gazette are hosting a Flag Day event for the Chapel of Four Chaplains and the Texarkana American Legion Twin States Post. The event will honor three local citizens who will be receiving Legion of Honor Awards from the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation. U.S. Army officials are coming in from The Navy Yard in Philadelphia to make the presentation that "honors outstanding members of society whose lives model the giving spirit and unconditional service to community, nation, and humanity."
The program, open to the public, starts at 6 p.m. in Truman Arnold Student Center Great Room at Texarkana College. (Details can be found on a Page One story in this edition and in an ad in the Accent section.)
Two of them are U.S. Armed Forces' veterans who served their nation proudly and then went on to serve their communities in selfless ways. The third is the Texarkana Gazette's own Greg Bischof, who has made a career out of covering military affairs and bringing to life the stories of soldiers and sailors who served their country on many fronts, home and abroad.
As you might expect, the Gazette family is very proud of Walter DeVore, Bill Norton and Bischof and the work, service and sacrifices they each made that precipitated these prestigious honors.
So if you are looking for a way to elevate your Flag Day experience, or give the holiday and yourself a patriotic lift that is sorely needed in these times, this might be the ticket-and a free one at that.
And, as you might expect, on your way onto campus, you will get an eyeful of flags. What a day.