Sponsors Sought For Appearance Of ‘The Largest Flag’

By Kaaren Valenta

Labor Day Parade organizers are looking for a business, an organization, or an individual to sponsor the cost of bringing the largest American flag, a flag that measures 45 by 90 feet, weighs 300 pounds, and requires hundreds of people to fold it, to this year’s parade.

“The cost of bringing the flag to Newtown is $1,500 and we thought that it would be such an honor to sponsor the flag,” said Kym Stendahl, who with Lisa Franze chairs the Newtown Summer Festival committee, which organizes the parade.

The committee learned last week that donations, which underwrite the entire cost of the parade, are running about 20 percent behind last year.

But Nick Kopcik of Newtown Exxon this week donated $702 to pay for the huge crane that is required to lift the flag. Police Lt David Lydem, known locally as the keeper of the flags that fly on the town’s historic flagpole, said Quik Pik of Shelton gave the parade organizers “a really good deal” on the cost of the crane, which usually is twice what it is charging.

Ms Stendahl said it isn’t known yet exactly where the flag will be flown, “but it will be spectacular,” she promised.

“We won’t know until the flag arrives on Sunday [the day before the parade], but we assume it will have to be somewhere near The Pleasance because of the [utility] wires along most of the route,” she said. “The flag is 45 feet wide, the width of Main Street, so parade watchers may have to move back, off the road’s shoulder, to accommodate it.”

The flag, and two other equally large flags, will be arriving on the national flag truck, a brightly decorated rig that carries flags throughout the United States and around the world to participate in ceremonies. Flying one of these flags requires a crane, 100-ton test ropes, and a bar that weighs 11/2  tons to lift it.

Accompanying the Stars and Stripes will be two equally large World War II flags commissioned by former President George H.W. Bush and used the first time at the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor by Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense. Since then, the flags have been raised at every World War II battlefield and are currently on their way back from Normandy.

The national flag truck is based in Boston at the Boston National Historical Park, “The Freedom Trail.” The truck carries a historic collection of American flags that are stored under guard by the US Navy aboard the USS Constitution, more commonly known as “Old Ironsides.”

The flag truck has carried flags to 600 official ceremonies worldwide, and clocked more than 550,000 miles including a historic 14,000-mile winter expedition from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks, Alaska, to mark the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Alaska Highway. On June 6, 1994, in celebration of D-Day, it became the first American truck to pass under the English Channel in the Channel Tunnel from London to Paris.

Although all of the flags are official government property, the national flag exhibit uses no government funding or taxpayer money; it is entirely supported by donations. The truck was donated by Navistar. It is serviced by dealers and returns each year to the Springfield, Ohio, factory where original assembly crew volunteers update it.

To donate to this year’s Labor Day Parade, send checks made payable to “Labor Day Parade” to Fleet Bank, c/o Brian Amey, 6 Queen Street, Newtown CT 06470. Make checks payable to “Labor Day Parade.” Or call parade organizers Kym Stendahl at 270-1805 or Lisa Franze at 426-1124.