The Great Boone
Flag Battle
!4 oil'll hors juiu«‘<l in. mul by July 4th
the news of Hill Greene’s stand had
spread around the nation.
Hi/ KOBLIIT I.. WILLIAMS
When the history of the 1980‘s is
compiled, edited, and reduced to only
the cataclysmic occurrences, it is not
likely that the Great Boone Flag Battle
will receive even a casual mention.
After all. no shots were fired, there
were no casualties, no one wrote a
monumental best-seller based on the
event, and no star-spangled speeches
w'ere made to resound throughout
history.
The opponents were hardly likely
combatants: Hill Greene and his sup¬
porters against the town board of
Boone. There was no hatred, no con¬
scious or intentional effort to damage
anyone's person or property, no vitu¬
perative reaction.
Hill Greene, like millions of other
Americans, is quiet, unassuming,
hard-working, cooperative in civic
matters, and reluctant to engage in
needless controversy. He might even
be classified as a member of that Great
Silent Majority in the most positive
sense of the phrase.
Similarly, the members of the town
board of Boone never planned, ex¬
pected. or dreamed that Ordinance V-4
and its enforcement could possibly
lead to such national attention.
$50 Per Day
It all started when Greene, who op¬
erates a Phillips 66 service station on
Highway 321 between Boone and
Blowing Rock, decided to put up a
flagpole and a large American Flag at
his gas station. The flag is. admittedly,
an attention-getter: it is a monstrous
six hundred square foot banner mea¬
suring twenty feet by thirty feet, and it
was in violation of Ordinance V-4
which states that no over-sized busi¬
ness signs can be erected along that
stretch of highways and roads. The
purpose of the ordinance was to pre-
12
vent crass commercialism from mar¬
ring the scenic beauty of the pictu¬
resque town.
So. in keeping w ith the law. city offi¬
cials sent Hill Greene a letter in June
and informed him that his flag was in
violation of the law and must be re¬
moved. Failure to comply would result
in a fine of fifty dollars per day until the
flag was taken down.
At that point eighteen year old Eddie
Cole, a recent high school graduate
w'ho had worked for Greene for six
years, decided to take his own stand.
He immediately contacted the Wa¬
tauga Democrat and asked them to
publicize the incident.
"I'm getting ready to enlist in the Air
Force." Cole said, "and part of my
reason for enlisting is to protect my
country's flag. So I figured that I have
as much obligation to protect it here at
home as I would have in some foreign
land."
National Attention
That was all that was necessary for
the battle to start. Almost as soon as
the papers hit the stands, the w ire ser¬
vices picked up the story, and in a
matter of a few hours Greene was vis¬
ited by Charles Kurali of CBS, and
reporters from Charlotte, Raleigh, and
Winston-Salem rushed to Boone. In
the meantime phone calls came in from
all over the country. Among the callers
were the mayors of Cincinnati and
Baton Rouge. North Carolina Gover¬
nor Jim Hunt and state Attorney Gen¬
eral Rufus Edmistcn. a White House
secretary who announced that Presi¬
dent Ronald Reagan might call later,
and others.
Equally important were the sup¬
porters w ho rallied to Green's side in
his home town. Ron Hester, a local
insurance representative, said of Hill
Greene. "In all the years I have known
him. I have never heard any criticism
of the man. He is very active in com¬
munity matters, and not one person, to
my knowledge, has made a comment
against the flag. I have talked with at
least fifty people and they were all in
favor of Hill Greene’s stand."
Tourists from several states made a
special point to drive by Greene’s sta¬
tion and buy gas and express their sup¬
port for his stand. One person handed
him a personal check to help defray
legal costs of fighting for his flag and
his convictions.
THE STATE. SfPT(MB(B 1981
