Carrying the banner
Flag shop all about the red, white and blue
By THOMAS MICHALSKI
| Article published on Friday, Jan. 13, 2006 |
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| Photo by THOMAS MICHALSKI |
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| Jeff Cloud boasts a wide variety of flags, pennants, banners and related items. |
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PINELLAS PARK – It’s a grand old flag, it’s a high-flying flag ...
Every size and design of Old Glory can be found at All American Flag and Pennant, 5391 Park Blvd.
The business was launched from a home back in 1989 by owner Jeff Cloud. It grew quickly and was relocated to a storefront and finally to its present location.
“One day I asked a local car dealer where he got his flags,” Cloud said. “It wasn’t long after that I began supplying them.”
Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Cloud moved to Pinellas Park at an early age. He later saw the need for a local flag supplier and decided that he would carry the banner, so to speak.
Besides installing and maintaining flags, banners and pennants for area auto dealerships and other businesses, he rents them to corporations, housing developments and even local governments.
All those colorful banners at car lots and stores are his work.
“A company may need the flags of certain nations for a seminar and we provide them,” Cloud said.
The period after Sept. 11, 2001, was his busiest time. People bought flags of all sizes, patriotic emblems and later even banners for blue and gold star mothers.
American flags are sold from the size of a lapel pin to 50 by 100 feet.
“The present American flag was created in 1959 with the addition of Hawaii and Alaska,” Cloud said. “There are people, however, who still fly flags with 48 stars.”
That’s legal, of course, as are American Civil War and other flags that can be special ordered.
Many of the flags are produced by a company in Huntsville, Ala. Other non-U.S. flags are designed and created locally.
“People have ordered flags with family crests, with their names or the name of their boats,” Cloud said.
The company also sells patriotic military emblems for cars, state flags and those of foreign countries.
“I love what I do for a living,” Cloud said. “Every day is different and I look forward to each one.”
The store is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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Article published on Friday, Jan. 13, 2006
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