By Tina Comeau

The Vanguard

NovaNewsNow.com

A third act of theft that has seen flags stolen from their spot next to the monument at Maple Grove Education Centre in Yarmouth County has discouraged the junior high school, but it’s also made the staff and students more determined than ever to proudly fly their flags.

“We’re going to put them up, and we’ll continue to put them up,” principal Svein Ravlo said last week.

It’s almost become an annual ritual now. The flags have disappeared just before school resumes in the fall, which is also the same time students are heading off to universities. Flags are generally a popular item to hang in a dorm room. Ravlo wonders whether the two are connected.

The flags are left out at the school overnight because the monument and the poles are flood lit with lights.

Still, Ravlo says there is some solace over the latest theft.

“What they didn’t take, oddly enough, was the main flag that was at half mast,” he says, pointing out the flag was at half mast out of respect for Canadian soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan. “They didn’t touch that one, so there is some glory left.”

Actually when it comes to flags at the junior high school, there is a lot of glory. When teacher Joe Bishara asked for two volunteers during a memorial club meeting to help put up new ropes and flags on the poles, Grade 8 students Shayne Hurlburt and Chad LeBlanc immediately stepped up.

“Our school didn’t quite look the same without them,” says LeBlanc, when asked why he was so eager to assist the school. Both he and Hurlburt said the Canadian and Nova Scotia flags are a mark of respect and there to represent the country and it’s important that they be back.

“Our school looked empty without them,” said Hurlburt.