News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Flag Lady

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: May 19, 2002

"‘Flag lady’ to keep busy before holiday

Ralph Pokorny

Austin Boulevard will take on a new look this Memorial Day. Judy Knowles, who calls herself “Flag Lady” is well-known locally for placing American flags on veterans graves in area cemeteries.

This week she will be placing American and POW/MIA flags on 60 of the utility poles along Austin Boulevard and bunting on the guard rails of the Austin overpass. Knowles said that the idea of decorating Austin Boulevard first came to her after Memorial Day last year as a way to show Nevada’s spirit to people who are traveling through Nevada on U.S. Highway 54.

“Most of those people won’t ever go to the cemeteries and see the flags there,” she said. “I decided that if I was going to decorate anywhere it would be on Austin Boulevard where my store is,” she said. Knowles and her husband, Stephen, own the local Sears store. “I think when get the boulevard done it will really be beautiful,” Knowles said.

The project, which is funded by donations from local businesses and individuals and a $1,000 grant from Impact Tourism, which oversees the use of the money raised from the local guest tax. Charlie’s Electric and the Nevada Fire Department are donating time and equipment to put the brackets and flags on the utility poles. Knowles, with the assistance of the Show Me Challenge Cadets, has been placing American flags on all of the veterans graves in both cemeteries in Nevada and several others around the county for the last four years.

She said the terrorist attacks of September 11 turned what was only an idea to be done sometime into a project of utmost importance, she said. “I’ve walked rubble like that with a dog searching for people. It must have been really heart-rending to do that day after day,” she said. “I don’t want them to be forgotten,” she said. Knowles also does not want the military personnel whose whereabouts are unknown to be forgotten.

“Every twentieth flag on Austin Boulevard will be a POW/MIA flag. We’re not going to forget those people,” she said. “Ten percent of my senior class are somewhere in Viet Nam,” she said. Knowles graduated from an upscale California high school where a lot of the young men became fighter pilots or crewmen on bombers. “A lot were shot down or captured; others we don’t know,” she said.

“We sacrificed a lot. We shouldnít forget it,” Knowles said. Today Knowles will begin her annual project of decorating the veteran’s graves in area cemeteries and anyone who wants to help is welcome, she said. Her schedule for today is: 9 a.m., Click Cemetery, 9:30 a.m., Mt. Calvary, 10-10:30 a.m. Moore Cemetery.

Newton and Deepwood cemeteries in Nevada and Sheldon will be decorated Tuesday. Anyone needs a grave flag may come by the Sears store and get one free.

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