The weekly meeting of the Calvert County Commissioners coincided with a day of pure patriotic celebration, June 14, Flag Day. The service was conducted by members of Calvert Elks Lodge #2620 and was held on Veterans Green in front of the Calvert County Courthouse.
The Elks is an organization that is distinctly American and extremely patriotic,” said R. Calvert “Cal” Steuart, the local lodge’s exalted ruler, who added the organization possesses “a loyalty to the American way of life.”
Calvert Commissioners’ President Susan Shaw greeted the attendees and recalled her own childhood and her family’s tradition of paying homage to the American flag.
“We always celebrated Flag Day,” said Shaw.
In fact, the lodge members received assistance from family members during the brief ceremony held at high noon. Steuart’s daughter Brooke sang the “Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America,” Three grandsons of lodge members participated in the parade of flags. The parade chronicled the evolution of the present-day American flag and the events recounted spanned four centuries, The youths carried and displayed the flags as Calvert Circuit Court Judge Warren Krug delivered the narrative.
The Calvert County Sheriff’s Office Color Guard presented the colors and Circuit Court Judge Marjorie Clagett led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Steuart made mention of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America and how it brought about “a resurgence in patriotism. Noting that in the aftermath of the tragedy the American flag was prominently displayed at the site of the World Trade Center in New York and the site in rural Pennsylvania where one of the hijacked airliners crashed, Steuart exclaimed, “no other symbol could have offered such comfort,”
