ethan fry photo
Nancy Busk Carlson and Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti pose for a photo while raising the city flag Oct. 19, 2017.
About 40 people gathered in front of Ansonia City Hall Thursday (Oct. 19) for a “reintroduction” of the city’s flag more than five decades after it was first produced.
The flag was designed in 1965 by Nancy Busk Carlson, now an optometrist living in Cambridge, MA, who grew up on Howard Avenue.
As a junior at Ansonia High School, Carlson won a flag design contest out of more than 300 student entries.
She was awarded a $25 savings bond for winning the contest from then-mayor Joseph Doyle.
The flag debuted in the 1965 Memorial Day parade and a handful of them flew from various spots in town before “simply weathering out,” Mayor David Cassetti said.
The city had more made in the 1980s, but only three remain. The last time it flew from City Hall was 1988, according to officials.
Until Thursday.
Cassetti and Carlson raised a new reproduction of the flag from the pole in front of City Hall with the help of the public works department’s Michael Eheman.
Cassetti also gave Carlson a key to the city.
The mayor said copies of the flag will fly at schools, parks, and other locations — as well as be offered for sale to residents and businesses, with numerous requests already received.
“This renewed flag interest indicates Ansonia’s pride is back,” Cassetti said.
Carlson recounted the story of winning the flag design contest.
“I’m fairly amazed and delighted that anybody remembers something that I did 52 years ago,” she said.
She thanked Cassetti and others for setting up Thursday’s ceremony and including her flag design in the “recharging” of the city, a theme of the mayor’s re-election campaign.
“Long may it wave,” she said.
Thursday’s ceremony was brought about by a post a former resident put on Facebook.
