Charles City Elks Lodge honors flag in annual Flag Day service

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Central Park was strewn nearly sidewalk to sidewalk with U.S. flags Wednesday in a patriotic display that was part of the Charles City Elks Lodge No. 418’s annual Flag Day service.

Lodge officers presented a program that included singing, the Pledge of Allegiance, information on the history of U.S. flags through the years and the significance with which the Elks hold honoring the flag.

“Members and guests, the purpose of this service is to honor our country’s flag, to celebrate the anniversary of its birth, and to recall the achievements attained beneath its folds,” said Exalted Ruler Jessica Schwickerath.

Lodge Chaplin Deb Carolan offered a prayer, asking God to “bless our Flag, and the people of these United States.”

“For all that our flag represents, both at home and abroad, we thank thee, and that through all our history as a nation, it has been an ensign of freedom, liberty and opportunity. And through the years to come may this flag wave as the banner of liberty, freedom and enlightenment,” Carolan said.

Schwickerath noted that for the Elks the observance of Flag Day has been mandatory since 1908 for each local lodge.

“This unique distinction as the strongest promoter of Flag Day is most becoming to the Order of Elks. This order is distinctively American. Only American citizens are eligible to join it and it has no foreign affiliations. It has linked its destiny with the destiny of our country and made this flag its symbol of self-dedication to God, to country, and to fellow men,” she said.

“What is the meaning of the flag of the United States? There can never be a definitive answer to that question,” Schwickerath said. “There are people in this world who see it as a symbol of imperialism; others see it as a destiny of the people. But reference to these and similar views of the flag was resolved by Woodrow Wilson when he said: “This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and shape of this nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours.”

Lodge officers participating in the service in addition to Schwickerath and Carolan were Trustee Steve Mills, Loyal Knight Steve Kincannon, Lecturing Knight Liz Hamm and Esquire Ron Munshower.

Recent Charles City High School graduate Sophia Jensen began the service singing the national anthem, and high school student Anton Dittmer played taps.