Field of flags to highlight Laconia Memorial Day observances

LACONIA – The area around Veterans Square will be awash in planted U.S. flags this Memorial Day weekend – 3,936 of them, to be exact.

That's how many names are on the honor roll monuments in Veterans Park, paying tribute to Belknap County veterans who served in combat between the Spanish-American War and Operation Desert Storm, according to Earl Beale, the Adjutant for American Legion Post 1 in Laconia.

If planting just shy of 4,000 flags sounds like a massive undertaking, Paula Gile would be inclined to agree with you. She's the associate pastor of the First Congregational Church in Laconia, which is part of the effort – along with the local VFW, American Legion and Greater Laconia Ministerial Association – to plant a field of flags.

“I'm hoping there's going to be lots and lots of people,” to lend a hand, she said.

They'll start putting the flags in the ground Saturday at 10 a.m., Gile said, installing the 12- by 18-inch flags on the lawns of the Congregational Church of Laconia and around the flagpole in Veterans Square.

Money to pay for the flags came from families of those who served in the military. They made donations in exchange for having the names of their loved ones posted in the flag field.

“People made donations to have names posted – that paid for the flags,” which cost 78 cents each, Gile said. That works out to $3,070, and any money raised above what is needed to pay for the flags will be split between the local American Legion and VFW posts, she said.

After the flags are planted, there will be a dedication service on Sunday at 2 p.m., and the traditional Laconia Memorial Day parade will be Monday at 10 a.m., but with change in route.

It will step off at 10 a.m. as usual from Wyatt Park and proceed up South Main to the intersection at Sawyer’s Jewelry. Then it will turn left onto Beacon Street West and continue on Beacon Street West, passing the field of flags and continuing onto Veterans Park, where there will be a small ceremony.

Beale, with the Legion – which is celebrating its 100^thanniversary this year – will be one of those out Saturday planting flags, and expects it will be quite a sight when it's all done.

“It should be quite impressive,” he said. “That's a lot of flags to put in a reasonably small area.”

Gile said as far as she knows this is the first time a field of flags has been done in Laconia, and when the ceremony is over the flags will be collected and stashed away, to be reused next year.