Today is Flag Day, the day we commemorate the adoption of the US flag on June fourteenth seventeen seventy-seven by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The flag resolution stated, “Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.” The first formal observance of Flag Day was organized and promoted in eighteen eighty-five by Bernard Cigrand a grade-school teacher in Waubeka, Wisconsin.  (wau-beek-ah)

Cigrand didn’t stop with a single-year observance. He spent years promoting respect for the flag and is generally credited with single-handedly establishing the national observance. Today is a great teachable moment for families to teach proper respect for the flag and to rehearse the meanings of the design of our Stars and Stripes.