Jerry Miller

Bengal Advisor     

Sometimes it’s tough to be nice when you want to yell at people. But I understand that some of you just don’t know. Every year during the football season, Pocatello’s Gate City Rotary Club (a service club) posts GO BENGALS ISU flags around the community.

The project is a fundraiser and local businesses and residents pay a fee to have a flag posted for every ISU home football game. So when flags are stolen, instead of being able to raise money for service projects in the community, it costs Gate City Rotary money. This is the fifth year of the project by Gate City Rotary, but it’s also a tough one because the club has had over 20 flags stolen during the last two home game weekends.

I even saw one exuberant ISU student show up at the North Dakota game in Holt Arena with one of the flags, which was eventually taken away from him by game security personnel.

No one wants ISU fans to cheer for the Bengals more than I do, but not if it means stealing to do it. Stealing a flag just to put on your apartment wall is even worse.

The worst of all, in my mind, is if ISU athletes are actually the ones stealing the flags. Members of the ISU softball and men’s and women’s basketball teams actually help the club post the flags every week, and if they stick with it they each get a used flag when they graduate.

I know they’re cool, attractive flags, but what kind of thought process leads a person to think it’s okay to steal one?

I also know that it’s not just ISU students that take the flags, as some local community members swipe them, as well.

So if you or someone you know sees one of these flags and decides it should be yours, here is a short, partial list of different projects Gate City Rotary supports with the money it raises, starting out with scholarships for ISU students:

ISU Academic Scholarships

ISU Music Camp Scholarships

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards

Free Dictionaries for all 3rd graders in Pocatello and Chubbuck

Meal backpacks for needy kids in local schools

Portneuf Greenway Project

Idaho State Civic Symphony

Polio Eradication

Peru Emergency Delivery Baby Kits

Africa Clean Water Projects

So, if you decide to take a flag, the projects above are what you’re taking from, not from some faceless group that’s just putting out flags to be cool.

By the way, if you or someone you know has a flag that shouldn’t have one, we’ll gladly take it back, no questions asked. Just send me an email at ude.usinull@rrejllim. We’ll work it out.