Chinook Lions Club members Richard Cronk and Jon Martin recently visited the Meadowlark Elementary first-grade classes of teachers Courtney Bell and Kasie Gandenberger. The Chinook Lions were on hand to continue their clubs four-decade tradition of giving a miniature flag to each Meadowlark first grader. Club President Cronk told the students, "We always like to give the flags around the time of Presidents Day." Martin is a new club member and also serves as principal at Meadowlark.

Before passing out the flags, Cronk gave the children some background about the Lions Club and how it serves youth in the community. He described how the club supports a swim team in the summer, provides scholarships to high school students when they graduate and provides some of the funding to bring the Missoula Children's Theatre (MCT) to Chinook each year. Asked how many had brothers or sisters on the swim team or who was part of the recent MCT production, a number of hands shot up. Cronk also told how the club used sales of pronto pups at the fair to support its youth and other programs around the community. Several students said they knew about pronto pups at the fair.

Following the patriotic theme that surrounded the annual flag presentation, Cronk talked about Presidents Day, then asked the students who the first president was. There was a resounding chorus of, "George Washington!" The little folks are very much up on basic U.S. history. Then they all stood and repeated the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Again, the kids knew the pledge and said it with gusto.

More specifically, the students were asked, "Where around town would you see flags?" They listed all sorts of places they had seen flags-from schools to the Post Office. Some said they had flags at their houses. The most interesting response was from a young girl who said, "I see the flag at the zoo." That brought a slightly quizzical look from Lion Cronk. He commented he wasn't aware of a zoo in Chinook and the little girl explained, "No, zoos are in Africa." It's pretty hard for an adult to top first grader logic.

Students discussed flag etiquette and how a flag should be displayed. The question "Why do people watching a parade put their hand over their heart when the flag passes?" stopped the discussion for a few seconds. Finally, someone said "to show respect," and the discussion moved on. It's interesting that at such a tender age kids have a very good notion that the flag is an important symbol and needs to be treated in a respectful way.

Each child was then given a small flag and a little holder for the flag. Richard Cronk told the students to display their flag in a place that was safe-especially from little brothers and sisters. One of the first graders told an adult watching the activities, "I already know where I'm going to put my flag. Right in my window." She was very proud of her newly acquired flag.

After the group photo taking the teachers helped the students carefully put the flags into backpacks to take home. Outside the classroom Cronk said the Lions Club had been distributing flags to first graders for more than four decades. He said, "I'm guessing the parents of many of these kids got flags when they were in first grade. I often have adults tell me they still had the little flag they got from the Lions in the first grade." Over the past 40 years the Lions have distributed more than 1000 of the little flags.

Steve Edwards

Meadowlark first-grade classes pose with their new American flags given by the Chinook Lions Club. Lions Jon Martin (left of photo) and Richard Cronk (right side of photo) told the students about the importance of the flag, how to show respect for it and then gave each student a flag. The first-grade teachers are Courtney Bell and Kasie Gandenberger.

It was George Washington's birthday when the kids got their new flags. It was an appropriate day for a patriotic activity and another successful gifting of flags was completed.