Giant flag ‘The Major’ to be retired after storm damage
Nov 14, 2024, 7:25 PM | Updated: 7:37 pm
NORTH OGDEN — A group of about 50 volunteers hiked up the Coldwater Canyon trail Thursday night to retrieve the giant American flag that was flying there, after it was damaged in a storm early Tuesday. The flag started flying in honor of Brent Taylor, who was North Ogden’s mayor when he was killed while serving in Afghanistan with the National Guard, back in 2018. The Major weighs about 400 pounds while dry, and spans 78 feet by 150 feet.
“Probably about 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. is when we started to realize that that tear wasn’t going to stop,” Taylor’s widow, Jennie Taylor said. “We were jeopardizing the integrity of the flag if we left it long.”
The Major was damaged in a storm on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Honor the Hero Foundation)
Volunteers with the Honor the Hero Foundation, who are tasked with flying the flag each year, removed it from its suspending line Wednesday, placing aside it in a protective sleeve until the larger group could bring it down Thursday.
Taylor said The Major will be repaired, but also retired from the canyon. It will instead be displayed at various community events.
“Every individual American flag flies for a time and then we respectfully retire it. And I think there’s great symbolism in that for us and our lives,” she said.
The Major Brent Taylor Foundation will raise funds to replace The Major with another flag that will continue the tradition in the canyon; flying for a couple of weeks each year around Veteran’s Day. The new flag will also carry a new name.
“It’s not my flag. It’s not Brent’s flag. It’s not even North Ogden’s flag anymore,” Taylor said. “It’s the flag that people from all over northern Utah, southern Idaho, Wyoming come to enjoy.”
In the coming weeks and months, Taylor said plans will be made for a retiring ceremony for The Major. There will also be an effort to seek the public’s help in naming the new flag.
“It symbolizes America’s red, white and blue,” Taylor said. “It’s not red or blue in today’s political times, right? And it’s for all of us, it represents freedom of speech and worship and assembly and thought and opinion. But mostly to me, it symbolizes unity.”
