East middle-schoolers learn about American flag and history

Dignity. Pride. Sanctuary. Safety. These are all words East middle-schoolers used when asked what the American flag means to them Tuesday morning during the It’s My Flag presentation at East Middle School.

Election Day was a fitting one for the Butte Exchange Club and Butte’s United Veterans Council to visit East to hold the It's My Flag assembly and commemorate the installation of the Freedom Shrine.

Doug Rotondi, co-chair of the Butte Exchange Club’s It’s My Flag and Freedom Shrine programs, led the students in the pledge and explained what each word meant and why it was important. He also explained to them what each fold in the flag means as two members of the United Veterans Council folded the flag onstage in the auditorium, and talked to them about the responsibilities of US citizens.

Near the end, he asked the students what America meant to them, what the flag meant to them and a variety of other questions to get their voices in the conversation. 

The students were eager to participate.

“It was very neat and it taught us a lot about what the flag means,” said eighth-grader Kendallyn Schad. “I didn’t know a whole lot about it before.”

Schad was one of a few dozen students selected to participate in the presentation, including others active in the school and community, and those working as office aides, in student council, in Builder’s Club and in the student ambassador’s club.

After the It's My Flag presentation, Tom Goyette of the United Veterans Council talked about his time in the Navy and answered many questions from East students ranging from what young people can do to support veterans to why he joined the military.

The Freedom Shrine is a collection of replicas of 29 different documents from US history, including the Mayflower Compact, speeches from figures like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Keith Miller, East Middle School’s principal, said that before his and his predecessor Larry Driscoll’s tenure, East had a Freedom Shrine hanging near the school's office.

The shrine was replaced one day for reasons unknown to Miller, and he said that before Driscoll retired, he told Miller that he had to get the Freedom Shrine back on East’s walls “because it shows our commitment to the community and our commitment to giving back.”

“The document is not only important to have the history of the country on our walls, which is number one,” Miller said. “The other part is learning that people sacrificed for that history, and for that story, so it’s really important to pay it forward by putting it out again, and by ourselves serving our community and serving our country.”

Miller said the shrine has been a top priority of his, and getting it back in the school was part of a more than two-year conversation having to do with the school’s multi-million dollar remodel.

Now the shrine adorns the walls outside East’s auditorium, complete with a plaque given by the Butte Exchange Club after the It’s My Flag presentation.

Students Nimalka De Alwis, Kacie Woolverton and Bridger Garrison all helped put a screw in the plaque, and so did the Butte Exchange Club president-elect Father Tom Haffey.

Rotondi said the club visited elementary schools for the last seven years or so until it had to take a two-year break when COVID-19 hit. When the club was able to start again, it decided to turn its focus to middle school and high school students.

“Our thought behind that was that the kids from grade school, they’re going to forget pretty much everything they learned back then,” Rotondi said. “And that it was time we started bringing this to more mature students that can have a better grasp on what the flag is all about and what it means.”

The club has established Freedom Shrines in several places like Butte High School, the Maroon Activities Center, the Whitehall Community Center, Butte Silver Bow Courthouse, and Butte's Bert Mooney Airport.