“Flags over Fayette” is occurring for the first time in Fayette County with more than 1,200 flags being distributed over 14 streets in Washington Court House.

Local resident Steven Armstrong organized the event in an effort to strengthen community pride and focus on what the community has to offer.

Volunteers are meeting at the county courthouse on Sunday, June 9 at 3 p.m. for pictures, followed by instructions and the Pledge of Allegiance led by a local veteran. The volunteers will then disperse to distribute the flags.

The volunteers have been invited by Sons of Veterans (SAL) to attend a cookout at the American Legion Post 25 at 5:30 p.m. that day. A veteran will be there to speak about the flag.

According to Armstrong, he does not need more volunteers for the event, but he encourages everyone to take the time to decorate their own areas where they reside.

“For the last several years, I see the city put their flags up through the downtown for about two weeks and everyone talks about how nice it looks—gives you a little city pride. I had always wanted to have them up longer—and more of them,” said Armstrong.

“With all of the bad publicity we receive—like with drugs—I thought that getting the community to rally around something as basic as national pride would be a great thing. So, after I talked to councilman (Steve) Shiltz about my idea, the city agreed to put them up from Memorial Day through the Fourth of July.”

The flags that will be put up by the volunteers on June 9 were paid for by Armstrong, CS Title Agency and Mark Cenci of ERA. The flags will remain distributed until the volunteers can pick them back up—on or around July 9. This way the flags can be stored for next year, which Armstrong said, will “probably be bigger and better.”

Armstrong expressed his hope that many will follow suit and join the community in Flags over Fayette—he will be creating a Facebook page for the community to post pictures of flags at their homes.

“We have a lot of great things happening here in town, and we need to be proud of that—new schools, new firehouse, new jail coming. A lot of positive things going on that we need to build on as a community instead of focusing on what we don’t have.”

Reach Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355.