One flag at a time
Greg and Jan Jesberger of Jan Jasberger Insurance at 9212 N. Government Way in Hayden have been exchanging flags in time for Flag Day for several years. Ralph Bartholdt/Press
Hayden business exchanges new flag for your old one
One of the flags that Jan and Greg Jesberger accepted over the years was a military flag with 48 stars.
It belonged to a relative of the person who donated it to the Jesbergers, who in turn gave it to the American Legion.
The flag, Old Glory, was on the coffin of a World War II veteran, and it had been in one particular family long enough to show its age.
“We retired that flag,” Greg Jesberger said.
Greg and Jan have for several years, as part of a community project, exchanged new American flags for old ones that need to be retired.
They will take your old, worn-out flag and replace it with a brand new Stars and Stripes ready for the halyard — if the flag is heading to a school — or the pole.
The idea is to have new batches of Old Glory waving in time for the birthday of the country’s symbol.
The Star Spangled Banner was officially adopted as the country’s flag by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, but the flag, which started with 13 stripes and 13 stars, has changed several times since then.
Each time the change happened by an act of Congress.
The Jesbergers’ changing of the flags is more casual, and focuses on the local community.
When they pitched the idea around, they learned that people liked it.
So each spring the owners of Jesberger Insurance in Hayden purchase boxes of flags from a Midwestern company that provides American-made flags to buyers throughout the U.S.
Residential flags are 4-feet long and 2 ½-feet wide, and the ones the Jesbergers provide to schools — Greg is a retired Coeur d’Alene district teacher — are 5-feet by 8-feet.
The flags they receive from others are turned over to the Rathdrum American Legion Post 154, where they are retired in an annual ceremony.
“We take the old flags and fold them respectfully before we turn them over to the Rathdrum post,” Greg said.
They usually exchange around 60 flags before Flag Day, they said.
At other times of the year, people who belatedly learn of their project drop off flags to be retired.
They are happy to do it.
“We’re just glad to be part of this community,” Greg said.