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A Very
Special Flag Pole For years now many Swifters have been watching a very special piece of Globe history slowly decay in an obscure military storage area in Saginaw, Texas. One of the crown jewels to the Globe memorabilia collection is the flag pole which was dedicated to John Kennedy by the Globe employees in December of 1942. Since the mid 1990’s many people have attempted to see if this piece of history could somehow be moved to the Swift Museum in Athens, Tenn. The Kennedy family including Tom, his sons John J. and Dan, and John Clay’s son Jason have all expressed a desire to somehow get this artifact to Athens.
Dan had written letters, as well as Charlie Nelson, but finding anyone with the authority to release this historical monument proved futile until Hal Cope became involved. Hal has some political ties with the State of Texas and after working with the Governor’s office and a state representative, things started to happen. This took a few months but by June of 2003 the flag pole was released to the Swift Museum Foundation. All we had to do was “Go get it". This story is about the removal of the flagpole and the beginning of its journey to Athens, its new home.
Because we were working on an active military storage area we were monitored by military security, a hazardous material coordinator for the Army, and a few spectators who watched through the fence. Larry Dennis was put in charge of Public Relations. He answered all the questions and kept track of who was who. The Army Guard unit was very co-operative and gave us great access. Lt. Col. West had worked with us all along and we owe him a big thank you.
Our work crew was comprised of many of the Red River Swift gang as well as “all” of the Kennedy family. Ken Coughlin from Oklahoma City got up at 3:00 A.M. so as to be at the work site at 08:00. Steve and Barb Wilson came up from Granbury, Larry Dennis from Grand Prairie, and myself. We contracted with a sign company to take the mast down and that was done in about fifteen minutes. Steve Wilson was checked out on the metal cutting saw and cut the shaft into suitable lengths for shipping. Ken Coughlin was dispatched to pick up the backhoe which was located about two miles away and was appointed the backhoe operator. None of us had ever worked a backhoe so the first person to touch it became the “expert”.
I had initially estimated the weight of the base at about 4,000 pounds but when I made a hands on inspection three days prior to our planned work date I was surprised at the size of this thing. It must have been growing. I have a friend who owns a company which moves oversized machinery and he had offered to take a look at this project for me if I felt I needed help. I made the call for his assistance and within a few hours he and his foreman came out and the new estimated weight went to about 8,000 pounds. I was over my head and he knew it. He immediately offered any assistance we needed as a contribution to the Swift Museum Foundation and we were back in business. Without the help of DFW Movers we would have been in trouble.
Our next pleasant surprise was that John J. Kennedy really knows how to work a backhoe so Ken was off the hook and John J. was put in charge of mechanized digging. The rest of us knew how to use shovels. The first dig was along the edge of the base to determine how much concrete was below the surface. More bad news. We dug down about two feet before we finally found dirt under the entire base. Someone made the comment that this monument was designed by the same people who designed our Swifts. It was definitely overbuilt. Did Bud Knox design the flag pole also?
Cutting off the shaft proved to to be one of the more difficult tasks since the concrete was very very hard and the steel pipe inside it was very very thick. The Kennedy’s won the battle after much sawing and knocking away of concrete.
The rest was easy. A very large forklift (Bertha) operated by professional operators combined with a very stout trailer, also supplied by DFW movers, made the transportation issue a no-brainer. Since John J. had to leave at this point Ken finally got his chance to “show us his stuff” on the backhoe. He filled in the hole like he knew what he was doing and the Wilson Duo added some new dirt to the hole, raked it real neat and we were done.
The flag pole was then transported to a secure warehouse in Ft. Worth where it is awaiting delivery to Athens. DFW movers even offered to deliver it for us for fuel cost. What a deal. Co-ordination on an exact date between DFW movers and Athens arrival logistics is where we are at at the time of this writing, but we expect the job to be complete sometime during July.
This is a somewhat bittersweet moment for some of us Ft. Worth Swifters to see the flag pole leave since I have personally enjoyed looking at it from time to time. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is the perfect move for this artifact since the Globe Plant will probably be demolished in the next few years, if it doesn’t fall down first. It has had a rough spring with several storms caving in part of the roof and causing the East wall to become unstable. The flag pole will now be where it can be properly appreciated. We thank the State of Texas for making this possible and especially a lady named Sallie Sullo from the Texas Cultural Office who took an interest in this project and helped make it happen
On the first leg to Athens.
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