Project is a tall, and wide, order

BONNERS FERRY, Idaho – There are a great many songs dedicated to honoring Old Glory. Not a single one of them can describe the flag that will soon tower over the small town of Bonners Ferry.

“Grand” and “high-flying” would be an understatement.

Everything in town looks like miniatures in a model railroad layout compared to this flag. An entire building was hidden from view behind this flag. And the veterans gathered for a preview of the flag Friday looked like Tom Thumbs.

The 1,800-square-foot flag will be the most visible part of a Veterans Memorial the community plans to dedicate on Memorial Day. Local veterans groups are deciding what words and sayings will be etched into a granite monument 12 stories below to honor themselves, the soldiers lost fighting for the country, and those who are fighting now or in any future wars.

Councilman Jim Burkholder said the City Council was supportive of the project, dreamed up by veteran Mike Ashby and community booster Marty Becker.

If the council could have any input into the project, Burkholder said it would only have two suggestions: “Make it taller. Make it bigger.”

“Our feeling is bigger is better,” Burkholder said.

Mayor Darrell Kerby said the flag will be a fitting tribute to the community’s veterans.

“A flag can’t be too big for that,” Kerby said. “They don’t make one big enough.”

Both Ashby and Becker had been toying with the notion of sailing a giant flag over the city – neither knew the other had been looking into what would be involved in such a project. Becker shared his idea with the Better Boundary County Coalition, a community group he helped found.

Then he got in touch with Ashby to discuss the project. That’s when he learned Ashby shared his vision for a bold patriotic salute to the town’s veterans.

In the months before Friday’s press conference to promote the Raise The Flag fund-raiser, they quietly raised about $20,000. Becker had a flag shipped express to Bonners Ferry for the press conference.

With the help of some locals, the flag was stretched high into the air between two forklifts. The flag wasn’t flying nearly as high as it will once the project’s complete, but people quickly took notice.

Ashby saw the flag for the first time as he drove down into town from the north.

“It’s going to be awe-inspiring,” he said. “It just took my breath away, even just hanging from a couple of forklifts.”

As soon as the flag went up at noon, Becker said people began stopping in the parking lot of the Visitor’s Center to gawk. Drivers on Highway 95 slowed as they came down the hill through downtown.

“I saw people driving by, rubbernecking on the road,” he said.

Plans call for a 100- to 120-foot flagpole, estimated to cost more than $14,000. The three-story-tall flags will cost about $1,600 each. Organizers of the Raise The Flag project will buy enough flags to last at least two years.

A local trucker, Delton Amoth, has offered to save the group some money on shipping. Instead of the group paying to have the giant pole sent from Texas (where else do you get a giant flagpole?), Amoth will drive down and pick it up.

Three smaller 15-foot poles with high-intensity lights will shine on the flag at night.

Becker and his wife, Teresa, gave $5,000 seed money to the project and the Better Boundary County Coalition donated $2,500. Many local businesses have made donations.

Before the 40-plus yards of concrete to anchor the flagpole can be poured, some hurdles have to be cleared. The project is planned for the Visitor’s Center parking lot and plans to build a new International Visitor’s Center are under way.

Kerby said they still need to get final permission from the state to include the memorial as part of that project. And, because it will be the tallest structure in town, the town also needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Resident Bruce Martins said the gigantic flag will greet visitors coming south from Canada – just like the Statue of Liberty greets visitors to America from the east.

“When it does go up, it’s going to look so majestic,” Martins said, “coming from the south hill and the north hill, surrounded by the Cabinet Mountains and the Selkirks.”

After the dozen or more veterans had a chance to pose for snapshots in front of the flag, they formed a line at the bottom edge. The forklifts slowly lowered the flag into the veterans’ arms. Stripe by stripe, it was folded with care and the big flag was placed in a little – but very heavy – box.