Community Comes Together
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Mykal Fisher (left) and Jackie Metzger (right) roll up the American flag and hand it to Tomasina Bruns (middle) to put the flag in with the others in the back of a vehicle Friday afternoon in Pana. Throghout the evening teams of volunteers loaded up on the backs of trucks to take down the flags.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Mykal Fisher (left) and Jackie Metzger (right) take one of the American flags out the ground that had lined Jace Christer’s funeral route Friday afternoon in Pana. During the funeral, community members, first responders, students and veterans lined the streets to honor Christer as the funeral procession passed by—some saluting or playing taps. The Pana Fire Department had lifted up a large American flag over the road as the procession had passed through downtown.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Jade Stephens helps unload American flags from the back of his truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Volunteers formed two lines to pass flags from one person to the next as they loaded up The Flagman’s Mission truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church. Jeff Hastings, the CEO of Flagman’s Mission, said he out about Jace Christer’s funeral through Zach Sarver, who had contacted him for a previous funeral in Cowden a few years ago. “They [the flags] flew in memory of Jace Christer, but they also flew in memory of every person that these flags have flone for before,” Hastings said. “Most parents and others will see that and go: ‘I want to go help.’”
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Jordan Karnes received and placed the American flags in the Flagman’s Mission truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– 600 American flags were placed in the back of the Flagman’s Mission truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church. The Flagman’s Mission started when the founder, Larry Eckhardt, attended a funeral for a fallen marine in Aledo, Ill. There was no flags and no one attended the funeral besides himself and the soldier’s parents, so Eckhardt bought about 50 flags to set up around the town for the soldier and decided to extend the service across Ill. to make sure each fallen soldier would be honored one last time.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Aaron Mathis and Steve Trexler help load 600 American flags into a Flagman’s Mission, a non-profit organization, truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church. Nearly 75 volunteers came out to help set up the flags Wednesday night for a military funeral.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Jeff Hastings, the CEO of the non-profit Flagman’s Mission, delivers a speech before announcing who will carry and lay the last American flag into the Flagman’s Mission truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church. Hastings said for the last flag he tries to choose a volunteer that has gone out of their way to help them set up the flags and help the community.
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- Photo by Breeze–Courier reporter Elizabeth Wood PANA– Volunteers clap as Zach Sarver carries the last American flag into the Flagman’s Mission truck Friday afternoon at the Pana Christian Church.
