Memorial Day Flag Etiquette

Memorial Day Flag Etiquette and July the Fourth—provide a natural opportunity to teach children flag etiquette. Even young children can be taught that our flag is special, and we treat it with respect. The National Flag Foundation lists some simple rules for honoring our flag. You can wear a T-shirt showing a flag; do not wear clothes made of flags.

Do not wear pants or use towels bearing flags—the flag should not be sat upon. • Raise a flag in a lively manner; lower it slowly. • Don’t create a flag motif on a lawn or football field, where feet can step on it. Don’t hang a flag at night unless you can illuminate it. Don’t display a flag during snow, rain, or other storms unless it is weatherproof. Hung vertically, the star-studded section should be in observers’ top left corner.

Good manners do more than make children pleasant to have around; they equip your kids to face varied social situations successfully. But instilling good manners has always been a challenge. Here’s what Socrates said regarding the young people of Athens in 500 B.C. Youth today loves luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, no respect for older people, and talk nonsense when they should work. Young people do not stand up any longer when adults enter the room.

Diane Borchardt

Diane Borchardt was a former teacher's aide/study hall monitor at Jefferson High School in Wisconsin. She was convicted of hiring three of her students to murder her estranged husband, Ruben Borchardt, on Easter morning in 1994 [1]. The Borchardts were married in October 1979. Ruben had just lost his first wife (the mother of his two children) in a car accident earlier in the year. For the next 14 years, both Ruben and his children were living with Diane, and the Borchardts had a daughter together. He did not hit or abuse Diane.

Late in 1993, Ruben fell in love with a woman who had hired him to do some cabinet work for her and he decided that he wanted a divorce from Diane. During the divorce proceedings, Ruben won title to their home, and Diane was given one month to vacate the premises. Diane then began soliciting some of her students for the job of killing Ruben, offering them cars and $20,000 from Ruben's life insurance policy. One of them, Douglas Vest, eventually agreed to do it and enlisted a couple of friends to help him. On the eve of the murder, Diane deliberately picked a fight with Ruben and told police that she was leaving the house, thus giving herself an alibi.

The next morning, around 3:30 AM, as Ruben and his son prepared to go to the Easter Sunrise Service at their church, Diane's students broke into the house and shot Ruben twice with a sawed-off shotgun, just as he was going up the stairs to get his son out of bed. Ruben was taken to a hospital, where he died several hours later. Diane got away with the crime for almost six months, until one of the gunmen told 'the wrong person' about his involvement in the crime, and implicated Diane as the organizer of the plot.

Kathy Coleman

Kathy Coleman ’87 is the 2009 recipient of the Alumni Volunteer Award. In addition to Coleman’s generous philanthropy, she contributes a tremendous amount of service to College. As a graduate of the Weekend College, Coleman lends a hand to them whenever they need it—whether to endorse a letter or be listed in a publication. Coleman is a member of the board of trustees and co-chairs the institutional advancement committee. She has also taken on multiple fundraising efforts on the College’s behalf, traveling both locally as well as to New England and the Southeast.

Coleman makes it her job to re-introduce alumni back to the College; she researches what may interest individuals, and then follows up. She participated in Hiram’s alumni trip to Greece. She made sure that she was meeting with each person individually, sharing information on the latest happenings at Hiram, and making sure they were forming a relationship with the College while they were in Greece.

Coleman noted that she – and her late husband Les – love places that built a sense of community – and that is what Hiram is all about. Thank you to Coleman for her volunteerism, and congratulations on this deserved recognition. Put this Alumni Weekend on your calendar, and see people from you class year – maybe one of this year’s award winners is from your class! All of them have been notified, accepted and will be in attendance, so plan on joining us!