---

NORTON - There are a lot of things Norton doesn't have: a large industrial tax base, generous school budgets, a Starbucks.

But there's one thing Norton has in abundance: Flags.

Over the past three decades, the town - population 19,169 - has gone through not one, not two, but three different town flags. By comparison, the United States - population 301,139,947 - has had just one.

Town officials say that voters settled the issue once and for all at last May's town meeting when they adopted as Norton's official banner the Congregational Meeting House flag, designed by two high school students for a flag-design contest held in 1993.

The contest was organized by then Selectmen Chairman Clarence "Butch" Rich, who was responding to Gov. William Weld's request that all cities and towns in the state send their official flags to Beacon Hill for the 1994 rededication of the Statehouse's Hall of Flags. The town was not always so flag-happy.

The area that makes up Norton today was first settled in 1669 as part of Taunton; it broke off and incorporated as an independent town in 1711. And for its first two and a half centuries, the town did not have an official flag at all.

That's where the story gets interesting.

A new flag was needed, Rich explained in 1993, because the old flag had been lost during the closing of the old central fire station, which is the senior center today.

Patriotic fervor was sweeping the nation when Rich, Diane Thomae and Lisa Crogan designed the now missing flag back in the bicentennial year of 1976. It featured a banner lettered with the town's name, which surrounded a portrait of a Native American labeled "Metacom" - better known as the Wampanoag chief, King Philip, he of the eponymous colonial war.

"Someone probably looked at it and said, 'What the hell is this?' and threw it away," Rich mused.

As it turned out, that's precisely what had happened; someone found the flag in a trash can. That person thought the flag was some sort of discarded Boy Scout souvenir, so he handed it off to Norton Historical Society President George Yelle.

Yelle had no idea where the flag had originated, so he put it in the society's basement and forgot about it until he read Rich's description of the vanished standard in a Sun Chronicle article. The flag reappeared, but the contest went on.

But there's a good reason why Yelle, a one-man encyclopedia of Norton lore, didn't recognize the Metacom flag when he saw it. It was never the official town flag.

That honor went to the famous Liberty & Union flag, also known as the Taunton flag - a simple red banner emblazoned with a British Union Jack in its upper left corner and the words "Liberty and Union" across the bottom. Likely one of the oldest patriotic flags in the United States, it was raised above Taunton Green in October 1774 by townspeople who wanted to show solidarity with Boston after its port was closed by King George III. Norton residents adopted the Liberty & Union flag as their own at a town meeting in February 1976, and then held a special flag-raising ceremony that September. But a number of residents, including George Yelle, argue that since it's really a Taunton flag, not a Norton flag, it was never a particularly appropriate choice for the town.

In any event, by 1993 the Liberty & Union's official designation had been forgotten. Indeed, by then most residents seemed to believe that Norton's official flag was the missing Metacom one - which was never actually adopted by anybody.

That November, Butch Rich announced he would give $100 to the resident who submitted the best design for a new town flag. Over the next two months, nearly 300 people submitted proposals for a new flag design.

The judges narrowed the field down to two entries: one by Norton High School senior Jamy Langevin and another by NHS freshman Ryan Smith. Instead of choosing one, the two agreed to combine their entries into a single design - the Congregational Meeting House flag, which features the town's name and incorporation year on a ribbon surrounding the old meeting house church.

Together, Langevin, Smith and Rich presented the new town flag to the governor on Flag Day 1994, and today it's displayed in the Hall of Flags alongside banners from other Bay State cities and towns.

"It was a big deal at the time," recalls Langevin's mom, Nancy. "There was excitement everywhere."

Yet it wasn't until town meeting on May 14 that Langevin and Rich's design - which is prominently displayed behind Town Manager James Purcell's seat at selectmen's meetings - replaced the Liberty & Union as Norton's official town flag.

Sadly, Jamy Langevin wasn't here to see his hometown adopt his co-design. The year after the state raised his flag, Langevin died from injuries he suffered in a rock-climbing accident at Leominster State Forest in central Massachusetts.

Langevin, an Eagle Scout, was studying engineering and serving in the Massachusetts Army National Guard at the time. His mother still cherishes a framed pencil print sketch of the flag design made by her son.

"I know he would be so proud," she said after the town adopted her son's flag as its official banner. "You say you want to leave your mark on this world. And he did."

TED NESI can be reached at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com or 508-236-0434.