New box to collect worn American flags

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

 A new option for retiring American flags is now available in the New York Mills community as part of an Eagle Scout project which was unveiled at Trinity Lutheran Church recently.  ¶  Aidan Krosch, NY Mills ninth grader, came up with the project idea after being a part of his Scout Troop 307 of Ottertail’s tradition of retiring American flags. Seeing an opportunity to provide a local option for flag collection in NY Mills, he decided that was what he wanted to do for his Eagle Scout project.  ¶  “Our troop and pack do flag retirements,” said Krosch, “So I was like, we should make a box so we can collect flags from our town and bring it to the troop so we can retire those flags with the others that we get to retire.”  ¶  Krosch has been a scout for the past eight years, joining in first grade. As a scout, the largest ambition is always achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, which one of the requirements is to complete a community service project. Krosch joins a number of scouts from NY Mills to complete such a project.

“My favorite part of scouts has been meeting new and other scouts from other troops around the area at camps,” he said.

A storm that sent a tree through Krosch’s window a few years ago gave him the opportunity to begin the first steps of the project, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

“In the storm a couple of years ago, the pine tree that the wood is made of went through his bedroom wall and window. Then we took it to have it milled into logs and planed down,” said Krosch’s mom, Lorilee.

Krosch worked on the planing with his grandpa and had help throughout the project from his family as well, but he mentioned how he enjoyed the process of planing, staining, putting together and especially designing the flag retirement box.

“I had to design it and how I was going to make it,” he said, “I had to do all the measuring and drawings and layout on how we would make it, then we had to buy other stuff too, like the stain, the wheels, and the screws and the plaque too.

“While we were waiting to get the stuff, we made the box first,” Krosch continued. “Then when we got done making the box, we got the stain, wheels, and screws put on and eventually we got the plaque and stuck it on the top and brought it here.”

Krosch hopes that his project will provide an accessible place to bring flags devoted for retirement for the community so that he and his troop are able to continue their respectful and proper destruction of the revered American flags.

“People that come to church can bring their flags that need to be retired and we will be able to take the flags, bring it to our troop and retire the flags properly,” he said. “Then we can take the grommets from them and make remembrance tokens for the veterans and their families.”

The project needed approval from the Eagle Board and Krosch needed to prove that this wasn’t simply a weekend project. He needed to show that planning, time, and effort was put into the project to benefit the community.

“It takes time to get it milled down and planed down from log to lumber you can use,” said Lorilee.

“My favorite part was getting to design it,” said Krosch, “We had to design it in a way that we could easily move it and to make it look nice, but to keep it nice and simple.”