SPRINGVALE — On Sept. 11, Paul Searles went to the place he often frequented when he was a child, growing up on Riverbank Court. He went to the back of Riverside Cemetery, where it meets the Mousam River and the Mousam Way Trail. A large, flat rock lies there.

Sept. 11 marked the first anniversary of the death of his mother, Nancy Sprague.

“I went there to sit and think,” said Searles on Monday. “My mother always enjoyed that view. She’d stop and clear her mind and think.”

He’d been there 14 years before – on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on an aircraft that crashed in a Pennsylvania farm field. At the time, he said, the area was “trashed” with garbage and graffiti.

Reflecting on the Sept. 11 attacks, Searles was inspired to paint an American flag on the rock in 2002. Friends pitched in to help buy supplies and do the painting.

The flag was admired for many years, viewed best from the Springvale Parks and Recreation area on the opposite side of the Mousam River.

But paint fades over time, even though respect for those who perished and respect for the flag and veterans didn’t.

Searles, who now lives in Wells, went back to his childhood haunt this past Sept. 11 to mark the anniversary of his mother’s passing.

There was graffiti all around, and the painted flag was looking pretty faded.

“It looked so bad,” Searles said. He thought if his mother could see the area the way it was that day, she’d be embarrassed.

“I sat there and looked at it and thought, ‘It’s a shame,’” he said.

So, with the aid of social media, he broached the subject of re-painting Old Glory on the rock.

Friends pitched in again to help paint, and local merchants and others pitched in to buy the paint.

“It was amazing to see,” said Searles of the painting process. “The first time we did it, 14 years ago, we did it in a day. This time, it’s taken a week.”

He said a man who told him he was in the twin towers when the airplanes struck that day, now 15 years ago, stopped to chat.

“He thanked me and shook my hand,” Searles said.

Searles has done some painting on the flag, but for the most part, he’s been the artist and organizer on the project this go-round. Two back surgeries have all but ruled out his getting down on the surface of the rock to paint.

The painting was accomplished by a small army of adults and young people, including his grandchildren.

“It looks like a real flag flapping in the wind,” he said. “The lines are so crisp, so uniform.”

Part of his message in painting and repainting the flag is for young people, to do something good for their community.

Mayor Tom Cote on Tuesday praised the effort as he gave the mayor’s report.

“It looks pretty amazing,” said Cote of the re-painted flag. “It looks really, really good.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.