The Central Pennsylvania Community Foundation will hold an event commemorating Flag Day on June 14 in Heritage Plaza, where attendees can look up to see the Gospel Hill flag flying high above Gospel Hill Park. Mirror file photo by Patrick Waksmunski

Flag Day may be one of the lesser national holidays, but it’s pretty big in Altoona.

Every year on June 14, the Central Pennsylvania Community Foundation works with city government to hold an event commemorating the holiday in Heritage Plaza, from where one can look up 14th Street to Gospel Hill.

There in Gospel Hill Park is the focus of that local celebration — the Gospel Hill flag, 30 by 60 feet, flying high on a thick white pole atop a hill that commands a view of the city and beyond to the south and the southwest.

The flag is big enough that on the current satellite image for Google maps, it stretches for half the width of the park, unfurled in what must have been a strong breeze on the sunny day on which the photo was taken.

A flag has been flying in the park since May 19, 1990, Armed Forces Day, following a campaign whose boosters included then-Mayor Ray Voltz, co-chair with Harold Fleck of the Altoona Flag Committee, a subset of the Altoona Sesquicentennial Commission, which had recently begun work preparing for the 150th anniversary in 1999 of the city’s founding, according to Jodi Cessna, CEO of the foundation.

The installation of the flag followed a cleanup of the park and was an early project of the Sesquicentennial Commission.

The installation of the flag happened after a fundraiser involving schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations and individuals, according to Cessna.

“The whole community raised money,” she said.

The schools competed, with kids bringing in coins for “nickel day, quarter day, dime day,” she said.

Businessmen Lee Hite and Ernie Wissinger co-chaired the fundraising committee.

The drive raised $50,000, and the money was supplemented with in-kind donations, including grading and excavation at the site in the park where the flag pole was placed.

At some point, there began to be annual commemorative events that focused on the Gospel Hill flag, then in July 1998, at the behest of Sesquicentennial Commission Chairman John Kazmaier, the $25,000 left over from the initial drive was placed with the Community Foundation, to create a fund to pay for ongoing repairs and replacements of the flag, according to Cessna.

The following year, the foundation took the lead in organizing the annual Flag Day commemoration.

It has happened every year since.

The only exception was in 2020, when COVID-19 disrupted everything.

In place of an event that called for people to mingle, Cessna went to Gospel Hill alone.

“I figured (the flag) was still worth celebrating,” she said.

Otherwise, the annual event has included a few speeches; the presentation and retiring of “the colors,” with a smaller flag carried by a firefighter; hot dogs and soft drinks served by police, firefighters and other city employees; and a brass ensemble that doesn’t have a name, but whose members come year-after-year.

It’s generally held at noon on Flag Day, but this year, it will take place in the plaza at 1 p.m., to accommodate individuals who would be unable to attend otherwise because of church.

Senior Judge Jolene Kopriva will speak.

The city Fire Department is responsible for raising and lowering the flag when it needs repaired or replaced, which isn’t infrequent, due to the fading effects of the sun and the ripping effects of the wind.

Cessna is fond of Flag Day, having been raised in a family in Ohio that valued patriotism and respect for the flag and that unfailingly celebrated the holidays associated with nationhood.

“I don’t ever remember not having a Fourth of July picnic with family,” she said.

They were good memories, she added.

“I was always one of those people,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m wearing the red, white and blue now.”

Through her family, Cessna also learned to respect the armed forces — and she married someone who served: Scott Cessna, an Air Force veteran who was in the military from 1983-93.

Flag Day originated with a schoolteacher in Waubeka, Wisc., who encouraged his students in 1885 to celebrate the flag’s birthday on June 14, which was the date in 1777 when the first official U.S. flag design was approved.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 Flag Day and in 1949, President Harry Truman signed a bill designating June 14 as Flag Day by law.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.