NATIONAL U.S. POSTAGE STAMP UNVEILING HELD IN THREE OAKS

By:  Stan Maddux

THREE OAKS, MI – Three Oaks followed Mt. Rushmore in 2024 as host of the annual national unveiling of the new United States Postal Service flag stamp.

The patriotic unveiling Saturday outside Vickers Theatre at 6 N. Elm St. was part of the pre-Flag Day weekend festivities, a long tradition in the community highlighted by the Sunday downtown Flag Day parade billed as the largest in the nation.

Flag Day is a national holiday celebrated every June 14.

Elizabeth Majduch, a spokesman for the USPS Corporate branch in Detroit, said the postal service chooses a different location for the unveiling of the new flag stamp each year.

Majduch said the unveiling every Flag Day was moved up this year, though, to be part of the weekend long celebration of the holiday in Three Oaks.

“Three Oaks was on our radar because they’re so patriotic here,” she said.

An estimated 10,000 people attend the annual parade in the village of about 1,400 residents.

Village Councilman Jason Niemzyk said it was quite a tribute for the national spotlight of the flag stamp unveiling to shine on Three Oaks given the deeply rooted support in the community for the nation and its veterans.

He pointed out the community is pretty quiet except during Flag Day weekend when “we get a little rowdy.”

“We are a village with a tremendous amount of patriotism where neighbors look out for each other and we’re honoring the country as part of who we are,” he said.

It was only fitting, perhaps, that Three Oaks followed Mt. Rushmore for the unveiling and it to happen during the 250th year of existence for the postal service and three branches of the U.S. military established prior to the official birth of the country.

Majduch said stamps marking the postal service anniversary will come out in July.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence giving birth to the country on July 4, 1776, was the first U.S. post master.

Commemorative stamps featuring the logos of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. were unveiled on May 19 at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C.

“We’re patriotic just like all of you,” a spirited Don Dombrow, Jr., the featured speaker for the unveiling ceremony, told the crowd of nearly 200 people.

Dombrow, the USPS Manager in Michigan for District 2 serving nearly two million delivery points, is a U.S. Navy veteran who served during the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990’s.

He called the flag stamp, which debuted in 1869, “an enduring symbol of freedom, national unity and patriotism.”

“I’m proud to say the postal service shares those same values with you,” he said.

A new flag stamp each year has a different design.

This year’s version features the words “United States of America” in blue lettering below the flag and “Forever USA” in gray lettering at the very bottom.

This year’s stamp was designed by renowned artist Antonio Alcala from a picture of an American flag taken by Doug Haight, a professional photographer from Evanston, Illinois who grew up in nearby St. Joseph, Michigan.

Haight said he and Alcala, a childhood friend of his wife, Liz, were sitting on the lawn of their shared vacation home several years ago in Wisconsin with a flag flying on a pole in the yard.

He said Alcala, who has designed over 100 postage stamps with different images, asked if he had any good pictures of the flag.

Haight said he later took a few hundred pictures of the flag outside the vacation home and one of few dozen finalists he submitted was chosen by Alcala for the design.

“This is really cool for me in so many ways,” he said.

The flag stamp unveiling also included a presentation of the colors by the Three Oaks American Legion Post and singing of the national anthem.