Setting a new standard

David Koth will one day be able to ride to Greenbrier High School, look up and see the flag he created..

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David, 9, was the winner in a school contest to design a new flag for his elementary school.

"This flag is forever going to be a part of Greenbrier history," said Betsy Lee, a counselor at Greenbrier Elementary School.

When David learned that his design would be made into a real flag that would fly above the school, he had one word to say - "Cool."

David used the school's colors, yellow and green, and the school's mascot, a wolf, in his design.

The flag has a yellow background and a green center circle with a wolf head in the center. There is a yellow circular boarder with triangles around the center design.

It wasn't easy to get those triangles exact, said David. He used a compass to draw the circle, measured the circumference and divided to figure out how many triangles would fit around it.

"It took a long time," said David, who worked two days on his flag.

The flag contest was part of the countywide character word program, Lee said. The word for November was "citizenship."

"We have been talking about what it means to be a citizen of the United States and what it means to be a citizen of Greenbrier - how to act, behave and treat each other," Lee said. "We've got so much of the American flag displayed that we thought it would be appropriate to have a Greenbrier flag."

David, who is in Bonnie Davis' third-grade class, competed against about 150 other entrants. He is the grandson of Dave and Marsha Koth. David said he loves to draw, especially animals and fish, but when he grows up he wants to be a dentist like his grandfather.

Drawing the flag helped David understand citizenship, he said.

"To be a good citizen is to be nice to others, help other people, especially people who don't have money. I like to give them dollars," he said.

Lee said it would be nice if David's design could be adopted at all three Greenbrier schools.

"We've got an American flag to show how proud we are of our country, and now we've got a Greenbrier flag to show how proud we are of our school, thanks to you," she told him.