American flag flies again at Frying Pan Farm Park

Frying Pan Farm Park once again has a U.S. flag in the skies, thanks to a new flagpole installed after years of work.

Fairfax County Park Authority officials placed it there this summer after Jack Pitzer, the president of the Friends of Frying Pan Farm Park, led efforts to get one there.

Flags were previously flown at the park next to an entrance by a barn as well as a four-room schoolhouse. But staff decided to place it by Middleton Barn and remarked on its special location.

“It looks like the landscape bed was made for a flagpole,” maintenance coordinator Eric Malmgren, who picked the spot, said for a park authority article on the history of flags at the park.

Pitzer made a donation to the Fairfax County Park Foundation for the flagpole and led a ceremony with his wife to raise the flag.

The project came with overcoming several obstacles, such as the need for a cement mixer, but renting one was cost prohibitive, but the county Park Operations Division intervened with a small cement mixer to get the one cubic yard of concrete needed, the Park Authority noted.

“It would have been a ton of work to mix it by hand,” former Frying Pan Farm Park Manager Yvonne Johnson told the Park Authority. She worked on the project and had the flag purchase finalized before her retirement.

The $2,000 project comes as future holidays, such as Veterans Day this Thursday, continue to provide points of reflection.