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by Blas Delgado Ortiz, 7 February 2002
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Flag new way to promote the city 
By DAVID JESSE 
Staff writer,
The 
Holland Sentinel 
Under bright blue skies, the city of Holland used a picnic honoring volunteers 
to unveil a new city flag. "This is a brand-new thing," Joyce Barkel, the city's 
director of volunteer services, said on Friday evening at the picnic. "We've 
never had one." The idea to create a flag came from students' requests to have 
something to take with them to events and conferences, Barkel said. "When 
students go to events and conferences, other students are exchanging them and 
(Holland) students didn't have them," Barkel said. "We are always giving away 
community promotional gifts." So, Barkel and Phil Meyer, the city's 
planning/development director, put together the design. The white flag uses blue 
lettering for the city's name, the city seal and a saying, "A lakefront 
community prospering through diversity."
"We wanted something to reflect the community," Barkel said, adding the phrase 
"through diversity" was added to reflect the city's diverse population. "It 
certainly fills a void," Holland Mayor Al McGeehan said, adding the flag isn't 
an official city flag, but rather something to be used to promote Holland. The 
Mayor's office also has had several inquiries about some sort of city flag to be 
used for promoting Holland at events, McGeehan said. While all of the flags at 
Friday's event were small individual flags, plans are under way to create larger 
ones, possibly including one to fly at city hall, Barkel said.
Phil Nelson, 8 April 2002