New flags, flagpole for Ocean Shores entrance

Ceremony honors Veterans, first responders

The new flagpole at Ocean Shores’ city gates now has two new flags and new lights after a special American flag-raising ceremony on Friday morning.

Starting with a ceremonial flag, which once flew over the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., the city then put up a new flag donated by citizen Don Williams, who also donated another one for the fire station farther down on Pt. Brown Avenue.

“They are larger flags and they have more presence. They look better on our flagpole,” Mayor Crystal Dingler said as she handed the ceremonial flag over to the honor guard from North Beach/Ocean Shores Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8956.

VFW members Dennis Hogan, John Link, Dan Martin and Jim Docherty then raised the flag to the Pledge of Allegiance while those who served in the military saluted.

Dingler gave much credit to local real estate agent Dan Sherwood, who has been working to replace the flagpole for years.

Once the money was in place and the city agreed to help out, it took five months to get the flagpole, Dingler said.

“We are pleased with the effort, and we’re happy to have it done,” she said.

The cost to the city was estimated at less than $500, with private donations amounting to about $1,400.

Sherwood said he first started the effort to improve the flag at the main city entrance when he came into town about four years ago and saw a “fish flag flying on the flagpole. The American flag wasn’t there.”

He began to investigate and was told the lights on the flagpole were bad. Flag protocol calls for a lighted flag if the American flag is to fly 24 hours a day, Sherwood said.

He first began to raise funds for the light: “We got our flag flying again, but what it did was show us how bad our old flagpole looked. So we said, ‘If we can put in a new light, we can put in a new pole.’”

“This about the veterans, the first responders,” Sherwood said. “That’s their flag probably more than it is ours, because they protect us every single day. So in honor of them, this is what it’s all about.”

Angelo Bruscas/North Coast News photo: Mayor Crystal Dingler, Dan Sherwood and the VFW Post 8956, with Dennis Hogan, Dan Martin, John Link, and Jim Docherty, present the ceremonial flag that once flew over the nation’s Capitol.