Staff Photo by Danielle Moore Pat Kittle, right, and friend Ozzie Daniel set up flags on the side of Highway 151 South in Ringgold, Ga. Nearly 100 volunteers helped place the 829 flags along streets and highways in Ringgold on Wednesday morning.

RINGGOLD, Ga. -- Over 39 years the downtown flag display for the annual Veterans Day tribute has grown.

Thankfully for those who've kept a tradition alive here, so has the number of people who help plant the crosses and raise the flags.

Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars started the tradition by posting a dozen flags in Anderson Cemetery in 1970.

They just wanted to honor local veterans, said Charles Teems, one of the few men living who put out the flags from the beginning.

Sometime in the late 1970s a VFW member and his wife saw crosses with names and branches of service at a ceremony in Centre, Ala., and brought the idea back to Ringgold, Mr. Teems said.

The flags honor deceased veterans who lived at least one day in Catoosa County, Ringgold Mayor Joe Barger said.

Twice a year, teams of volunteers arrive at the old city annex building and unload stacks of hollow wooden crosses, folded flags and 14-foot metal poles.

Fourteen feet is the approved height for flying a flag at half-staff, which is one way the military honors its dead.

This year more than 40 volunteers came, the mayor said, not counting three classes from local schools. He estimated more than 120 students walked the roads to set up flags at the Catoosa County Courthouse, the depot, the new city hall and every 16 feet through the heart of the city.

Those volunteers raised 829 flags, Mr. Barger said.

The mayor said the city adds between 80 and 100 flags a year, and 70 to 80 flags have to be replaced each year due to wear and tear.

The flags last about 10 years, since they're flown only for two weeks around Memorial Day in May and two weeks around Veterans Day.

Friends or families who put a friend or family member into the ceremony are asked to pay $65 to build the cross and fly the flag. The poles are donated by Ringgold Electric, Mr. Barger said.

Mr. Teems said that for about four years before the city of Ringgold took over in 2002, he and two other veterans kept the ceremony going with the help of volunteers.

Now four of the five men who started the tradition have their own crosses, he said.

"You're proud, but it's very sad because we know most of the people," Mr. Teems said.