New flagpole at Cerro Gordo County Courthouse dedicated

MASON CITY — A ceremony was held on Monday afternoon just ahead of today’s celebration of Veterans Day after a new flagpole was raised outside the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse.

Cerro Gordo County Veterans Affairs Director Paul Beatty says the old flagpole was in dire need of repair or replacement, and now the flags can properly be displayed.   “The supervisors got a new 30-foot flagpole out there for us so that we could have the flags back up there. They got a reinforced pole so that we could add the POW Flag to it too. So this pole can hold three flags with the wind should be getting around here and do just fine, because I know the old one was in bad shape. Now we can fly the POW, US and state flag in the correct order for the veterans and the whole town.”

Beatty says many people don’t realize when there is a three flag display that includes the POW Flag that it goes in between the US Flag at the top of the pole and the Iowa state flag.  “So there’s several regulations with the military like the AR 76-1 that will tell you what it is, and there’s certain instances where you’ll do it differently too, but to be correct 365 days of the year, this is the correct order for it to be in.”

An honor guard raised the flags at noon on Monday.