July 02, 2015 7:53 pm • By Carmen Duarte

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Thirteen interment flags for veterans — most at one time draped over their coffins — will fly over Tucson on Saturday to honor the veterans’ service to America.

The flags were donated by relatives of the deceased to Flags for the Flagless, a nonprofit organization founded by two Tucson police officers whose mission is to raise Old Glory on barren flagpoles in the city. The organization also gives flags — with donations from businesses and individuals — to schools.

Veteran Sigmund Klaussner, who died in 2005 at 73, is one of the 13 whose flag will fly this Fourth of July.

“I want his flag to be flown because he was so proud of his service to his country,” said his sister, Edie Swankie, who donated the flag to the organization.
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Renee Stoll
Friday, June 12, 2015

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GERRITSEN BEACH (WABC) — A new flag is going up in a classroom at PS 22, Gerritsen Beach School – the flag is the first thing students give their attention to every morning.

“It’s a great symbol of our country,” says 2nd grader, Casey Sarubbi.

For a school that weathered the storms of Superstorm Sandy, its flags did not do as well.

“They were just worn, faded, some of them tattered – probably pretty old flags, you know!” said Charley Foley.
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Posted: Jun 04, 2015 10:28 AM
By Carissa Planalp

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TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) – A Tucson nonprofit group will travel more than 2,000 miles to deliver donated American flags for a special Flag Day assembly at a Brooklyn public school. This will be the first national event for Flags for the Flagless ahead of Flag Day and Independence Day.

As staff and students continue to pick up the pieces from Hurricane Sandy, a school maintenance worker reached out to Flags for the Flagless. According to the release, 30 donated flags are on the way to the preschool to fifth grade students in New York.
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May 24, 2015 7:58 pm • By Carmen Duarte

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More than 2,000 flags mark veterans’ graves at Evergreen Mortuary & Cemetery this Memorial Day.

Members of the American Legion Morgan McDermott Post 7 — the oldest in Tucson, dating to 1919 — along with volunteers put Old Glory at the graves to honor all veterans for their service.

Memorial Day, which was formerly known as Decoration Day, was established in 1868 after the Civil War. In 1971, Congress declared it a national holiday and moved it from May 30 to the last Monday in May.

For post auxiliary member Mary Manges, the day brings back emotional memories for those who survived war but saw buddies die on battlefields. The day is emotional for the families, relatives and friends of soldiers who never returned, and for those who did but were forever changed by the bloodshed.
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January 14, 2015 6:00 pm • By Carmen Duarte

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When employees at a north-side flooring company arrived for work Monday morning they were stunned to discover that someone had stolen the American flag from the company’s 70-foot flagpole.

“The flag disappeared sometime after 5 p.m. Friday and before 5 a.m. Monday,” said Amy McDaniel, a sales representative for J.R. McDade Flooring Co., 3650 N. Oracle Road, just north of West Prince Road. “Who would steal an American flag?”
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By Jocelyn Valencia | Published 09/10/14 7:18pm

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A historic moment will take place at the Chase Building, Tucson’s first skyscraper, today at 9 a.m. for the first time in 75 years. Flags for the Flagless, an organization that installs flags on unused or abandoned flagpoles, founded by Tucson police officers Charley Foley and his partner Bradley Clark, arranged the ceremony.

Two American interment flags that draped the coffins of Tucson World War II veterans, Alvin E. Miller and Joseph C. Yanek, will be raised at the skyscraper. The flags were donated by the families of the veterans, Miller’s son and Yanek’s widow, in an effort to bring them back to life.
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September 09, 2014 6:00 pm • By Kimberly Matas

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Patriotism and peace are the themes for two events today in remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

At 9 a.m., flags that draped the coffins of two Tucson veterans of World War II will be raised on poles recently reinstalled on the Chase Building downtown, 2 E. Congress St.
The flags were donated to Flags for the Flagless by the families of Alvin E. Miller, a sergeant in the Army Air Corps from 1941 to 1944 who died in 1989; and Joseph C. Yanek, a command sergeant major in the Army from 1942 to 1973. Yanek, who also served during the Korean and Vietnam wars, died in 2008.
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