Shiny New Flag Pole!

Upon arriving in Sierra Vista on July 19th I investigated my new school-All Saints Catholic. Trying to get the daily routine down I noticed no flag pole. The janitor showed me where a rusty pole, no longer working, no longer visible was hiding. It was at that point I knew one of my first projects was to raise money for a flag pole.

At one of the first school Masses I announced the project to raise money for a flag pole for our school. Being a military town with the Army Fort Huachuca, the adults after Mass were shocked to hear we had no flag pole. Many came up to me and expressed this. One such gentleman was, Manny Trujillo, member of Woodman's of the World. He said he would contact the oganization to see if they could donate a pole. Wow! Fast work for my first project!

Within a couple weeks he said they would be shipping a 30 foot pole from out of New York. It would be coming by truck. The flag pole didn't come and didn't come so we put a tracer on it. It said it was shipped but didn't know where it ended up. So they sent another pole out from Texas.

Shortly after this I received a phone call from a high school in Ohio. They discovered our flagpole was dropped off at their school. They also received a flagpole but never checked the four boxes that were left. It took several months for them to install it and that was when they first noticed two boxes with our names on them. I contacted the shipping company and they quickly picked the two boxes up and sent them our way arriving in October. The one from Texas was canceled.

Once it arrived I realized I needed someone to dig the hole, put the pole together and hoist it up into the ground. I asked Our Lady of the Mountains Knights of Columbus. They agreed to take on the project. The goal was to get it up by Thanksgiving and have the dedication on Thanksgiving Day. That didn't happen as we had to coordinate with Cochise College to get them to dig the hole and put the pole in. We also had a donation of concrete around the pole by a local plumber. As you can see it was a total community project.

The flag pole was put up by Christmas Day and the flag was waving strongly in the winter winds.  A couple of weeks after the students were raising the flag, they came to get me. The hooks for the flag were stuck at the top of the pole!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it after all this time of waiting for the pole. The flag rope was one long loop and the hooks were not attached properly so that day when they lowered the rope to hook the flag the hooks went right to the top of the pole and got stuck. Soooooo we had to wait till the electric company was in our neighborhood doing work and then kindly used their "cherry picker" ladder to get the hooks down and then they were properly secured.

In the meantime I had contacted the Woodmen of the World to come for the dedication. It was set for March 28th at 12:30pm. At the dedication we had the Knights of Columbus, Father Ariel, Manny Trujillo and several Woodmen of the World from the Phoenix Office. A beautiful dedication of the flagpole and blessing of it was held.

Mr. Trae Gonzalez, Woodmen of the World

Father Ariel Lustan, Pastor, blessing the flag pole.

The school children sang the National Anthem worthy enough to do it before the next Super Bowl. They also sang America and My Country Tis of Thee. We had beautiful blue skies and a good wind to make the flag wave at the top of the shiniest, silver pole I have ever seen. A project started in August was at last completed on March 28th.

A big thank you for a large community and church effort to give us a very visible and working flag pole. We are proud to fly the flag in this Army Town.