The Story of the Newbury Township Flag
The Original Newbury Township Flag (see story below)
"Newbury Grade School Designs Township Flag"
Reprinted from The Times Leader, Wednesday, June 16, 1965
The Western Reserve Territory was land in Ohio purchased by the Connecticut Land Company. It was to be used for settlement, especially by returning Revolutionary War soldiers and the people in Connecticut who had lost their homes during the war.
This territory from Pa. west to Huron County comprising 3,800,000 acres, was eventually settled by people from Connecticut and Massachusetts. The individual counties were established as the settlement increased and eventually each county was divided into townships.
Lake and Geauga were originally as one county until Geauga was separated and divided itself into sixteen townships. Newbury was the fifth township to be organized in 1802. According to Lake and Geauga history, Newbury was named after Newburyport, Massachusetts.
The Flag for Newbury contest was conceived while doing a unit on Geauga County by Grade Four in 1965. At a National Principals meeting Mr. Boytar, our Newbury Elementary Principal met and talked with a principal of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Upon discussing our heritage, the principal of Newburyport mentioned having a flag. Thereupon, it was hoped that the Fourth Graders, under the direction of Mrs. Willard Blackington would have a pen pal correspondence to our Mother School (so to speak). This did not materialize, having a contest for a flag did.
Our Fourth Graders discussed and decided to invite the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Graders to participate in the contest. Then posters were made to invite anyone else in the school who wished to enter. Two weeks were given for entries. May 21, 1965 was the deadline. At this time seventy students from Newbury Local School had submitted entries. Our class went over the entries upon which all names were concealed, and decided upon 19 of the 70 entries as best.
On May 27 these 19 entries went before our judges who picked the finalists. Our judges were Mrs. Harold Arndt, Mrs. W.O. Frohring, long time residents of Newbury, Mr. John Lockhart, President of the Newbury Board of Education, Mr. Henry Povolny, a Newbury Trustee, and Mr. E. Tom Boytar, Newbury Elementary Principal. They were so pleased with the many entries and good ideas that they decided on five winners. The judges used the ideas from the five finalists to make a Newbury Township Flag. The winners were Robert Crotty, Linda Phillips, Diane Welch (grade Four), Charlene Powell, and Bobby Blair (grade six).
The colors red, white and blue represent our national flag. The shape of our Newbury Flag represents our Ohio flag. The red and white stripes represent the other fifteen townships in the county. The field of blue represents our sky and lakes. The five stars mean Newbury was the fifth township settled in Geauga County and the gold star symbolizes Newbury.
Our orange and black N represents our responsibility to transmit wisdom and knowledge to each succeeding generation and our belief and support of universal education.
The Fourth Grade sponsoring this contest and bringing it to conclusion by hand sewing Newbury's first flag are Barbara Anderson, Susan Bottger, Terry Casseday, Lindy Colvin, Randy Cottrill, Robert Crotty, Richard Crow, Dennis Dingle, Jack Evans, Jeffrey Ferguson, Brian Frohring, Connie Hadlock, Elise Hink, Steven Johnson, Ronald Decatur, Jackie Katanik, Timmy Kleve, Amiee Kravcisin, Dale Lewis, Lenora Likins, Linda Phillips, Chris Powell, Jodi Rauch, Wanda Sabo, Linda Spryszak, Christopher Tausz, Cheryl Teague, Marianne Teichman, Diann Uminski, Dianne Volin, and Diane Welch.
The Permanent Newbury Township Flag, located at the Newbury Town Hall (photo taken 1/30/2001 with Mrs. Rosemary Blackington)
