Community Corner

Lake Murray Kiwanis Club Seeks No Glory as Flags Go Up Again on Median

Flag Day tradition is maintained by John Pilch and Jay Wilson of the club, who also post flags on Navajo Road in San Carlos.

While posting one after another Old Glory on Tuesday morning, some passers-by on Navajo Road asked John Pilch and Jay Wilson: “Are you getting ready for the Fourth of July?”

They politely informed the folks: It’s Flag Day.

If you were driving on Lake Murray Boulevard around  7 a.m., you might have seen Pilch and Wilson of the Lake Murray Kiwanis Club on the grassy median north and south of El Paso Street, putting up 13 American flags (representing the 13 original colonies).

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“It’s just a tradition,” Pilch said. “I don’t even think twice about it.”

Pilch said the flag display on Lake Murray Boulevard goes back 20 years “at a minimum.”  He’s been involved for 10 years—and stores the flags in his San Carlos home. A folding sign credits the club, but isn’t meant to hog attention.

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The club—which meets at the Marie Callender’s restaurant in La Mesa and is marking its 50th anniversary this year—also puts 20 flags up on Navajo (joining forces with the Elks Club, which also plants 20 flags).

Pilch and Wilson will remove the Lake Murray flags about 4 p.m., with Pilch noting, “They have to be down by sundown, because they’re not [illuminated].”

Pilch, who is retired, is acutely aware of flag etiquette and concedes that some of the banners on Lake Murray need to get cleaned.

“You can get them dry-cleaned,” he said. “Usually, [merchants] clean them gratis.”  But he’s looking for a local dry-cleaner to do the work this year. 

“There’s nothing tattered,” he said. “They may look a little grimy. If there’s a flag that’s tattered, they can be replaced.”

Pilch and Wilson are active community members besides their Kiwanis affiliations—with Pilch president of the San Carlos Area Council and Wilson an executive of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation.

Pilch said he appreciates the fact that the city of La Mesa provides concrete post holes for the flags—which go up on federal holidays and other major observances. “They allow us to fly the flags there,” he said.

So why do they make the regular trips to Lake Murray Boulevard for the flag-plantings?

They’re “making people aware that there are community members and groups that care,” Pilch said. “We get horns tooted [in approval]. Can’t beat that.”


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