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By Colleen Surridge
ALTAMONT — Altamont will celebrate its 33rd annual Flag Day on June 14.
The public is invited to share in the fun of the day, beginning with a biscuits and gravy breakfast from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Altamont Fire Department.
Children’s games will begin at 8 a.m. and continue through 2 p.m.
“We have three inflatables coming, a slide and two moon walks. They are sponsored by the Flag Day Committee and the Altamont Recreation Committee, so the kids can ride them all they want free,” said Flag Day committee member George Kibler. “There will also be a turtle race, water wheelbarrow race, money in the haystack, a hoola-hoop contest, an egg toss, a balloon toss and numerous other games.”
There will be a quilt show from 9 a.m. to noon at the Altamont Fire Department. The horseshoe toss will begin at 10 a.m. Registration is at 9 a.m. in the Altamont City Park Building.
“The parade starts at 11 a.m. with line up at 10:30 a.m. behind (Labette County High School’s) Harrison Auditorium. Anyone who wants to be in the parade should come on down and we’ll get them in,” Kibler said.
There will be two concession stands operating.
“We are going to have a prize drawing at 4 o’clock, and it is a spectacular one this year,” Kibler said. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
A free bean feed, sponsored by the Altamont Methodist Church preschool, will begin at 6 p.m. Entertainment during the bean feed will be Alan Banzet.
A free street dance featuring Rick Cook will close out the evening, following the bean feed.
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parsonssun.com

HOLLAND — Diana Van Kolken recalls watching her father, John Noe, march in the Holland Memorial Day parade after their family moved from Coopersville in the early 1960s.
“We always went,” she said.
“We would usually watch from 16th Street.”
Noe, who served as principal at the former E.E. Fell Junior High School on River Avenue, was wounded in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. He was awarded a Purple Heart.
As Van Kolken watched the parade year after year, she had this question: Why didn’t it go down Eighth Street, through the center of Holland’s downtown, like the Tulip Time Festival parades?
The 64-year-old owner of the Shaker Messenger doesn’t have to ask that question anymore.
Partly because of her persistence, on Monday the city’s Memorial Day parade will step off on Eighth Street for the first time in nearly 60 years.
American flags will line the downtown route as veterans head east on Eighth to Columbia Avenue, then south on Columbia to 16th Street, then east to Pilgrim Home Cemetery.
“We wanted to bring it back to the heart of the community, which is downtown,” Van Kolken said.
More than a year ago, Van Kolken and Judie Zylman, the former executive director of Hospice of Holland, approached the Holland Area Veterans Council with the idea of moving the start of the parade to Eighth Street.
For years, the parade had started at Centennial Park, just a few blocks south of Eighth, and ended at Pilgrim Home.
The veterans’ council agreed to the change.
Van Kolken then convinced city and police officials to approve the change.
For Zylman, the Memorial Day parade will have special meaning.
A year ago today, her nephew, U.S. Army Pfc. Casey Zylman of Coleman, was killed near Tallafar, Iraq, where a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle.

blog.mlive.com

Baby Boomers Couples Club, 10:30 a.m., 5050 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton. Call 561-445-7778.
Ballroom dancing, 7:15-10:15 p.m., American Polish Club, 4725 Lake Worth Road. $12. Call 561-683-7012.
Compulsive Eaters Anonymous, 10:30 a.m., Crossroads Club, 1700 Lake Ida Road, Delray Beach. Free. Call 561-870-7060.
Dignity Palm Beach, religious and social club for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Roman Catholics, 5:30 p.m., St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 100 N. Palmway, Lake Worth. Free. Call 561-309-0088.
Haitian Flag Day, noon to 10 p.m., Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach. $8 to $13. Call 561-279-1100.
Moving Forward, 3 p.m., Boca Raton Community Hospital, 800 Meadows Road. Free. Call 561-395-7100.
Slavic-Russian food festival, noon to 2 p.m., St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, 7099 S. Military Trail, Lake Worth. Call 561-967-4183.
VFW Post 4141 breakfast, full service, all you can eat, 8 a.m. to noon, 5 SE Second Ave., Delray Beach. $6. Call 561-276-9529.
Voice for the Children, seminar on parental alienation and parental abduction, 1 p.m., Unity of the Palm Beaches, 1957 S. Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach. $10. Call 561-586-8515.
Barbershop chorus, Hurricane Harmonizers rehearsal, 6:30-9 p.m., Olympic Heights High School, 20101 Lyons Road, Boca Raton. Free. Call 954-427-1921.
Bereavement support group, 1 to 2:30 p.m., Center for Group Counseling, 22455 Boca Rio Road, Boca Raton. Call 561-483-5300.
Camera club, 7 p.m., Boynton Beach Senior Center, 1021 S. Federal Highway. First two meetings free. Call 561-735-4888.
Canasta, noon to 4 p.m., Wellington Community Center, 12165 Forest Hill Blvd. Free. Call 561-753-2484.
Compassionate Friends, 7:30 p.m., St. Paul Lutheran, 701 W. Palmetto Park Road, Boca Raton. Free. Call 561-368-0324.
Computer classes in Spanish, 8:30 a.m., Vickers House South, 3801 Georgia Ave., West Palm Beach. Free. Call 561-804-4975.
Delray Newsmakers Toastmasters, 5:45-7 p.m., Ted Center, 401 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach. Free. Call 561-737-3174.

sun-sentinel.com

If America doesn't add a new star before I die, I'll be the first Barnett — in a long line of Barnetts — to be born and die under the same flag. That just ain't right.
Travel back with me and track the growth of these United States across seven generations of my family:
– Joseph Barnett (born 1754) saw 13 colonies form a new nation, and then grow to 26 states total before he died in 1838.
– His son, Andrew (born 1797), witnessed 18 states join the Union, only to see it rip apart just as he passed in 1862.
– Then came Jared (1831-1911), who, across his tumultuous eight decades, watched nine new states join, 11 of them leave in a huff (only to be forcibly reintegrated), and then another 13 added!
– Jared's boy, Harry (1864-1948), had his national flag go from 35 stars to 48.
– My grandfather, J.E. (1896-1983), got five new stars.
– And his only son, my dad, John (1922-2004), was reduced to just two (Alaska and Hawaii).
And what about me (1962 and counting)? I'm looking at nada with all this anti-immigrant populism, even as China adds lost colonies and the European Union keeps expanding.

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