Photograph courtesy of Marilyn White
The banner to announce the upcoming Memorial Day service in Saratoga is missing, and Marilyn White of the Foothill Club is trying to find it.
Memorial Day banner missing in action ... where could it be?
By Kate Carter
It's the case of the missing banner, and all of Saratoga is a suspect.
The banner announcing Saratoga's annual Memorial Day service was supposed to be hung at the Saratoga Fire District station the first week in May. But neither the city nor the Saratoga Foothill Club, the event co-sponsors, can find it.
Event chairwoman Marilyn White, of the Foothill Club, thinks some unsuspecting event coordinator may be storing the red, white and blue banner. The city hangs all the event banners at Blaney Plaza, she says, and then event sponsors come and pick them up from the city's corporate yard. It's possible someone may have taken the wrong one, she said.
"Everybody's hunting for it," White said. "Someone's got it in their storage. I'm thinking something in the paper would get everybody looking for it. How can anyone lose a banner?"
The banner is to announce this year's May 27 service to honor the nearly 700 veterans of U.S. wars-back to the Civil War-buried in Madronia Cemetery. The Foothill Club has coordinated the annual event since 1922.
This year's problem appears to have arisen from last year's new banner-hanging arrangement. The banner, which had always hung at the fire station, was for the first time moved to Blaney Plaza a week before the event, White said. The city was then supposed to remove the banner after the event and return it to the Saratoga Cemetery District, which would store it and change the dates for this year's event.
Gary Reed, district manager of the Saratoga Cemetery District, which oversees Madronia Cemetery, says he went and checked its storage last week and the banner wasn't there. White found out about the problem and called Diane Carnegie at the city's corporate yard. Carnegie said the banner wasn't stored there either, White said, but invited White down to check for herself. Sure enough, said White, no banner.
And the fire district, which used to handle much of the banner-hanging responsibilities but stopped doing so in preparation for a possible move or reconstruction, doesn't know where it is, either, White added.
While White recognizes she still has time to order a new banner, she said the Foothill Club doesn't have the $1,500 she expects a new one to cost. She's entertaining the idea of standing out on the corner of Saratoga-Los Gatos Road and Big Basin Way herself with a homemade sign.
"I think we'll just have to go without it," she said. "But we do want the world to know."
To report the banner's whereabouts, call White, 408.867.9417.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
