{"id":52951,"date":"2020-07-02T13:29:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T19:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/giant-american-flag-cant-be-missed-near-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2020-07-02T19:29:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T19:29:17","slug":"giant-american-flag-cant-be-missed-near-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/giant-american-flag-cant-be-missed-near-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant American flag can\u2019t be missed near Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n

Travelers on U.S. Highway 160 between Durango and Bayfield might have noticed a new addition to the skyline this week: A 100-foot metal pole wielding an American flag about the size of two coach buses.<\/p>\n

Jeff and Michal Searles, the flag\u2019s owners, decided to erect the new flag to send a message of hope to their community when the United States seems to be falling apart, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like America\u2019s just tearing everything down right now. Why not build something?\u201d Michal Searles said. \u201cThere\u2019s still some good Americans out there. We\u2019re still proud to be American.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family always wanted to put a flag on their property just west of Gem Village and found a 20-by-38-foot American flag online. Michal welded the flag pole \u2013 \u201cIt wasn\u2019t enough at 50 feet. We had to keep going,\u201d she said \u2013 and with the help of a few coworkers, built a road and brought in a crane to hoist the pole in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have intentions to put up one that big. But I figured if I was going to put one up, I should do one that\u2019s big enough for everyone to see,\u201d Jeff said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A 20-by-38 foot American flag has caught the attention of many passersby this week just west of Gem Village, where Jeff and Michal Searles erected the massive flag pole on their property.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jeff
Jeff and Michal Searles put up a 20-by-38-foot American flag on their property near Gem Village.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The flag is visible from at least 7 miles away, depending on the direction, the couple said. They were worried it would attract complaints, but the public\u2019s reaction on social media has been mostly positive. People are even weighing in on whether the flag needs more lighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not necessarily proud of all of my politicians, but I\u2019m still proud of my country. I think our country needs a little more of that,\u201d Jeff said.<\/p>\n

On social media, some said it made their day; several supported the show of national pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of see on the news that everything\u2019s just falling apart. But we\u2019re not all falling apart. I hope it gives people some hope,\u201d Michal said.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

100-foot pole, raise flag as message of hope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[731,13,2992,28,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gem-village","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52951"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}