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Aberdeen: A Town Too Big for Just One Flag!

In trivial pursuits, Aberdeen now has an official community flag in addition to its official city flag.

After a long awkward pause following the introduction of the new flag marketing maven Tiffany Langer got paid good tax dollars to design for us before she became a city councilwoman, the Aberdeen City Council brought back a resolution to formally adopt the new flag. That action threatened civil war, since Aberdeen already has a flag designed by a local artist as part of an Exchange Club contest back in winter 1989.

Chamber of Commerce to the rescue! With typical conciliatory consultantly communications cleverness, the Chamber brought a compromise resolution that allows Aberdeen to fly two flags:

Aberdeen Two Flags Resolution 2020
Aberdeen Two Flags Resolution, Aberdeen City Council Minutes, 2020.08.03.
Aberdeen flag, photo by Jim Ragatz, posted to FB, 2020.06.11.
Boring, old, persistent—Aberdeen’s real flag, the city flag, now and forever! [Photo by Jim Ragatz, posted to FB, 2020.06.11.]
The Chamber graciously allows you to fly this banner, this community flag to advertise your community.

You see, it’s not enough to have civic pride. You also have to brand and market your community. You have to have banners.

Maybe that’s what America needs. Maybe our current flag, a crowded, ad hoc graphic design problem now besmooched and trumpled under a police-state dictator’s vulgarity, needs a companion banner to help us refresh the national brand we’ve tarnished. Hmmm… what national community flag might we wave to let the world know we’re back and nicer than ever?

An obvious first choice…
Zachary Hill, t-shirt design
Maybe we need to be explicit about our message… [t-shirt by Zachary Hill, available on CottonBureau.com]
puppy welcome
We’ve got puppies! We’ve got bones! Come on over!

However many flags you want to fly, Aberdeen’s resolution leaves unanswered the question the order in which you ought to fly them. Must the city flag and the community flag always be displayed at the same height? Must the color guard always carry the city flag in before the community flag? When the Mayor’s motorcade arrives at the airport to greet President Biden at the airport for his Great Rural Revival Tour, do we mount the city flag on the left bumper and the community flag on the right, or vice versa?

We can only trust that our city leaders will dedicate all the time appropriate to resolving these grand vexillogical issues so Aberdonians may freely and proudly fly their flags—flags, plural, gosh darn it, because we’re that awesome!

5 Comments

  1. David Bergan 2020-08-11 21:52

    Sweet! Even less time for long division! Finally a reason to move to Aberdeen.

    Kind regards,
    David

  2. grudznick 2020-08-11 22:43

    Surely you jest, Mr. H. The town of Aberdeen does not sport its own flag, and has no color guard and motorcade for the mayor, does it? That is nearly Mobridgesque or Gettysburgian. I fully expect a law bill this next year to prohibit these town flags and mayor panderings. I assure you it could happen.

  3. jerry 2020-08-11 23:23

    With the newly opened 60,000 square foot 3m plant in Aberdeen, they might need three flags.

    “An east and west wing, each 60,000-square-feet, will be added to the south side of the current facility, which currently spans 440,000 square feet. The first wing is expected to be up in the next 90 days, said Aberdeen plant manager Andy Rehder. An additional 100 employees will be added to staff the new equipment with hiring continuing through the next two to three months, he said [Kelda J.L. Pharris, “3M Aberdeen Announces Expansion,” Aberdeen American News, 2020.05.12].

    That would be correct then, 90 days from May 12?? Happy days are here again! Just in time for South Dakota school children and not a minute too soon. Another 60,000 square foot building right quick like.

  4. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-08-12 12:46

    The construction is proceeding apace, Jerry. I don’t any Aberdeen flags, city or community, up on the new concrete 3M building yet.

  5. jerry 2020-08-12 12:57

    I guess they will need to bring back those South Korean workers to get the job done quickly, like how they did with the EB5 thingy in Aberdeen. This is just a pandemic going on so there is really no need to hurry as Tinker Belle GNOem would attest. I mean the jury is still out on the “theory” of masks, according to her.

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