Walt Simpson got one of his toughest orders last week: 10 coffin-sized Honduran flags.

They needed to arrive the next day so they could fly back to Honduras with 10 of the migrant workers killed when their van went off a one-lane bridge in northern Maine.

Simpson orders flags from manufacturers for his wife, Brenda, who owns Allen Flag & Flagpole Co. in Cape Elizabeth.

When no other flag dealer in the state could track down the 10 Honduran flags on short notice, Simpson did.

But Simpson didn’t want credit for getting the flags to go to him. He wanted credit to go to the Cape Elizabeth United Methodist Church. Because when the Honduran consulate didn’t have the money to pay for the flags, the church paid for them.

“A lot of people assume that because you live in Cape Elizabeth, first, you are wealthy, and, second, you have no interest in anybody else. And neither one of those is true,” said Larry Dial, the pastor at the Cape Elizabeth United Methodist Church.

Cape Elizabeth film producer, Kirk Wolfinger, won an Emmy for his documentary “Bioterror,” which aired as a part of the N O VA series on Maine Public Broadcasting last fall.

Wolfinger had been working on the film, which won an Emmy in the news and documentary category, just before Sept. 11. He had to step up production after the terrorist attacks and letters laced with anthrax changed the way everyone viewed the potential for bioterrorism.

Surprising even themselves, several parents were persuaded to look more closely at extending the kindergarten class day during a Cape Elizabeth School Board workshop Tuesday. But several board members were concerned about how to quantify the value of such a change, to be able to justify the added expense.

“We’ve been discussing this issue for five years,” said School Board Chairman Marie Prager. This latest discussion came as the school building committee looked for advice from the public on the size of a proposed addition to Pond Cove School.

If Scarborough residents approve a $26.8 million bond to renovate the high school, it would be the biggest bill a community has picked up statewide for a single building without state money, according to officials at the Maine Department of Education and local architects.

A couple factors have earned Scarborough this dubious distinction.

First, high schools are the most expensive schools to build, mostly because of their size, but also because they have science laboratories with expensive equipment and large gyms and auditoriums. Then add to that the fact that most Maine communities don’t build any schools without state money.

Cape Elizabeth is popular. Tour buses make their way down Shore Road almost every day of the summer and early fall. The buses are going to Ft. Williams Park, owned by the town, and home to the Portland Head Lighthouse. In fact, Portland Head Light is often said to be the most photographed lighthouse in the world.

While Town Manager Mike McGovern was vacationing in Australia, he was surprised to see an image of the lighthouse in a bookstore display. McGovern told the Current that while visiting an Ikea department store in New Jersey he saw an image of the lighthouse as well. “You see it just everywhere,” he added.

An initial cost estimate to build a sewer along Haigis Parkway has been reduced by $1.4 million, bringing the project down from $10.7 million to $9.3 million.

The change in cost was due to a reduction in the amount of proposed capacity. When looking at bringing a sewer to Haigis Parkway, seen as essential to commercial development there, the Scarborough Sanitary District built into the design proposal capacity for the development of other land in the area, including along Payne Road and the road to Scarborough Downs.

Should the school day be longer? Should the school year be longer? Is there a way to more efficiently use time during the school day to allow for more learning?

These are all questions currently being looked at by the Scarborough Board of Education. Last week the board held the first of several workshop sessions in which they will be looking at the issue of instructional time.

Imagine Scarborough with a hotel and conference center, a Downeaster stop, one central place for small retail stores, thriving biotechnology firms and tourist destinations.

Planning Decisions, a company conducting visioning meetings for Scarborough, let local business leaders dream last week. After residents from neighborhoods all over Scarborough gathered for visioning meetings this summer, members of the Scarborough Chamber of Commerce got their chance last Thursday morning.

Editor’s note: Looking Back is a weekly column including news items reported 10 years ago in The Current, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in September 2011.

Seventh-graders at the Scarborough Middle School take the first steps in learning how to use their new laptops in this file photo from Sept. 19, 2002.