What makes a good flag?
According to the North American Vexillological Association — a nonprofit dedicated to the study of flags, or “vexillology” — a flag is effective for five reasons: it is simple, uses meaningful symbolism, uses two or three colors, has no lettering and is distinctive.
In 2017, Concrete, a town with a population under 800, got a new flag that satisfies all five principles — and was designed by a high school student.
Concrete’s Economic Development Commission, an advisory board to the Concrete Town Council, organized a flag-designing contest that received 114 entries.
The winner was then-Concrete High School senior Becky Azure, whose winning flag, voted for by the Town Council, is a simple picture of Sauk Mountain with the town’s industrial silos in the foreground. The original design was written about and published in the Skagit Valley Herald.
“Concrete’s a small town, it’s not known for very much,” Becky Suttles (formerly Azure) said. “The silos are one of the main things … I couldn’t really figure out what else to put on there. Because I couldn’t just make it a gray flag. But you can see Sauk Mountain very well from the town.”
Though the initial flag was created with paint and Sharpie, it was remastered using a computer. The final design included snow on the mountain’s peak, Suttles said, who moved to Concrete from Everett when she was 13.
“I actually didn’t even submit the design until I think the day before it was due,” she said.
Suttles, now 24, lives in Oak Harbor and works as a firefighter.
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