Vancouver Elks celebrate Flag Day with ritual

RIVERRIDGE – Vancouver Elks Lodge 823 celebrated Flag Day with a ritual on June 8. The VFW Honor Guard presented the colors while the officers and members of the lodge conducted the Elks Ritual, honoring the flags that have flown over our nation since 1775. Members of the lodge’s Emblem Club and two Sea Scout groups escorted and guarded the flags during the ceremony. In 1907, the Grand Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks designated, by resolution, June 14 as Flag Day. The Grand Lodge of the Order adopted mandatory observance of the occasion by every lodge in 1911, and that requirement continues.