Pocatello, Idaho. – For the fifth straight year, Pocatello's Gate City Rotary Club will be posting flags around the Pocatello-Chubbuck area on days that Idaho State University plays home football games. Now Bengal fans anywhere can get a flag using a new web page to place their orders.
The fund-raising project began when ISU radio play-by-play announcer
Jerry Miller was the Gate City Rotary Club president. Miller said the new website will make it easier for fans to participate.
"Knowing that it's so much easier for fans to just go online and place their orders is exciting," Miller said. "We finally came up with the web page, which was created by Shiloh Armstrong at BengalWorks Graphics in Pocatello. Shiloh is a club member and donated all of the work in getting it up and running."
Bengal fans can now go online at gatecityrotaryproject.org and place their flag orders. Miller said there are all kinds of options available.
"People and businesses in the Pocatello-Chubbuck area can sign up for the posting service, or they can lease flags for an entire year," he said. "We now actually sell flags to people and businesses that live outside the area because we can't post game-day flags where they are."
He said they get a lot of requests from local people to buy flags instead of using the posting service. That would hurt the fund-raising aspect of the annual project.
"The dollars raised from the game-day posting service allow our club to participate in so many more worthy service projects now," Miller said. "If we sold the flags to locals they wouldn't participate again until their flag wore out, which could be years. This way it helps us maintain the annual fund-raising aspect of the project and allows our club to donate to more worthy causes every year than we ever used to be able to do."
Miller said it's a lot of hard work to get the flags out and pick them back up again on game days.
"We have dozens of our club members doing flag routes around the community and we've also been able to recruit help from ISU's women's basketball and softball teams. This year we're hoping to get help from the football and men's basketball teams, as well. I'm up at 6:00 a.m. on a game day to get things rolling and my wife and I are sometimes out until ten at night gathering flags back up after I'm done broadcasting the game. There are so many people that work hard to get it done, but there's nothing quite like being in town on a game day and seeing those flags everywhere you go. It leaves no doubt that this is Bengal Country!"
Miller said the web site at gatecityrotaryproject.org gives participants the option of paying online or being billed for the service, and they encourage Bengal fans everywhere to participate. They want every visiting team to know this is Bengal Country.
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