Wayback Wednesday: Case of the Missing Flag

It was a beautiful fall day outside the windowless Parkland Archives... I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was yesterday.

My weekly research for “Wayback Wednesday” topics became mired by mystery and intrigue (well, more of a curiosity, really) as my eyes fell upon an article from the September 8, 1982 issue of Parkland Prospectus which detailed the efforts of the Office of Research and Planning and the Community Information office to create Parkland’s very own flag.

Driven by Parkland Administrators and the Board of Trustees, and led by Dr. Paul Kunkel, then director of Research and Planning, the official decision to produce a flag was made in April, 1982. The project was handed over to Alice Nelson and Kit Henley, artists in the Community Information Office who quickly produced a white flag with the Parkland “Tree in a P” logo. The flag had a thin green border and yellow fringe, and hung in the Flag Lounge. It has since been replaced with a display of international flags.

This got me wondering: where is that flag? Lacking the standard-issue fedora and trench coat of a classic detective, I grabbed my handy Parkland badge – the one that says “Archivist” under my name – just in case I needed to confirm my identification. I hoofed it around Parkland asking key individuals just where the flag might be. The search was fruitless. I was met each time with shaking heads and helpful suggestions for which office I should try next. I even asked my informant, former Parkland Archivist Lori Sprague, alas to no avail.

Down but not out, I headed back to the stacks, determined to broaden my search. So now I’m issuing an A.F.B. – an all-FLAG-bulletin – requesting information on the whereabouts of the Parkland flag.    

Have you seen this flag? Here it is, hanging in the Flag Lounge, in an undated publicity shot from the mid-1980's.

If you have any information related to this case, please contact the local authorities – I mean, archivist – immediately. Should you come in contact with this flag, approach with care as it is the only one of its kind.

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Have a question for the Parkland Archives that you think might make an interesting Wayback Wednesday feature? Let us know at archives@parkland.edu.

Wayback Wednesday Bonus: Watch the the Illinois Public Media series, Illinois Pioneers, featuring Parkland’s first employee, former assistant to Parkland’s first President,  Rachel Schroeder and Dale Ewen, retired executive vice president.