Posts from — March 2010

Some Colonial Flag employees share their thoughts and feelings as they remember Tuesday, September 11, 2001…

The “Healing Field program” started out as a way to commemorate the lives of those lost to us on September 11, 2001.

Since the first Healing Field display back in 2002, hundreds of communities across America have hosted a “Healing Field” or “Fields of Honor” to raise money and awareness for a growing array of causes.

So far (this year), Healing Field Foundation has received registration for the following fields that will go up across our nation in 2010:

Auburn, NY
Carpentersville, IL
Cohasset, MA
Eagle, ID
Las Vegas, NV
Lima, OH
Minerva, OH
Murfreesboro, TN
Newport Beach, CA
North Kingsville, OH
Questa, NM
Springfield, OH
St. Paul, MN
Tempe, AZ
West Jordan, UT
Westerville, OH.

Learn more about Healing Field Foundation here.

I received numerous “astronomy lessons” from my dad when I was a younger boy.  One of the first things he taught me, that I can recall, was about one particular star, called the “North Star” (also known as the “Pole Star”).

The North Star is a very prominent star that is approximately aligned with the Earth’s axis or rotation.  It is a star whose apparent position is close to one of the “celestial poles,” and which lies directly overhead when viewed from the Earth’s North Pole.

The North Star (Polaris) as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Interestingly, while other stars’ apparent positions in the sky change throughout the night, the North Star’s apparent position remains essentially fixed.

Now, the Alaska State Flag consists of eight gold stars, including the (bigger) North Star.  The other 7 stars form the “Big Dipper.”

The Alaska State Flag.

The Alaska State Flag was designed back in 1927, 80+ years ago, by Benny Benson, a 13-year old boy, native of Alaska, for a competition to create a flag for the then “Alaska Territory.”  Till that time, Alaskans flew the U.S. flag since the territory was purchased from Russia in 1867.

There were over 700 submissions!   To celebrate Benson’s achievement, he was awarded $1,000 and was given an engraved watch.  He explained that for the design of the flag, he had looked to the sky for the symbols he included on his flag.  Included with his submission was the following description:

“The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the “forget-me-not,” an Alaskan flower.  The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the union.  The Dipper is for the Great Bear – symbolizing strength.“

The Big Dipper symbolizes a bear, an animal indigenous to the State of Alaska.  As shown on the Alaska State Flag, the stars can be used as a guide to locate the North Star and determine true north, which, interestingly, varies considerably from a compass bearing in Alaska…

More than one century ago, in 1903, Utah had a problem.  Following the invitation by the St. Louis World Fair to participate in a parade of states, and with only a few months before the start of the parade, the State of Utah was unprepared, it had no state flag!

However, on May 1, 1903, in St. Louis, the delegation from the Union’s youngest state marched proudly with their new flag in the parade of states.  A photograph was taken of the delegation standing around the flag.

More than 100 years later, in 2008, Ronald Fox, also contributor to flag-post.com, found the photograph of the flag.

As some of you know, Ron is a “history buff” and an indefatigable artifact hunter.  Like a pit bull, he latched onto the idea of finding the flag…