Students show patriotic stripes Flag: Elementary and middle school children from Maryland participated in the National Flag Day Foundation's traditional human flag event.

For two hours yesterday, Fort McHenry became the largest classroom in Maryland.

About 3,000 young students became part of history when they assembled near the water and held up red, white and blue poster boards to form a living American flag.

The National Flag Day Foundation invited elementary BTC schoolchildren and a few middle school students from around the state to participate in a Maryland tradition dating to 1914, when Ella Baker was part of the first Human Flag, as it was called then.

Baker returned yesterday to pass the Baton of Patriotism, a symbol of freedom, to her great-grandson, Todd Baker, a student at Hickory Elementary School in Harford County.

For most students, like Cole Taustin, 10, from Salisbury, it was their first opportunity to participate.

"It was great," said Cole, who with 12 other students from the Salisbury School boarded a bus at 7 a.m. to hold one of the 50 stars. For having traveled so far, they got an opportunity few other students enjoyed -- a tour of Fort McHenry.

The ceremony commemorates the battle of North Point and the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." The foundation, which sponsors the event, encourages Americans to observe National Flag Day on June 14.

Assembling 3,000 students might seem difficult, but the seasoned volunteers from the foundation and various civic groups made it seem easy.

The children filed into designated rows, and those arriving early were given their choice of red, white or blue squares. Master of ceremonies Tony Harris, a news anchorman at WBFF-TV's Fox 45, maintained order. Despite the rising temperature, he kept the children focused, telling them they would be on television.

Then the big moment arrived.

As three helicopters loaded with photographers hovered overhead, Harris ordered the sea of children to raise the colored squares above their heads -- and be still. While the majority obeyed, some could not find the strength in their arms to hold the boards straight for nearly 10 minutes, until the first break, at which point some children raced for bathrooms and water.

"It was exciting holding up the flag," said Nikia Taylor, a fifth-grader at Callaway Elementary School in Northwest Baltimore. "We made something that was incredible."

"The program gets better every year," said teacher Jackie Billings, who has brought students from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in North Baltimore to the ceremony for the past eight years.

The foundation offered a $500 cash prize for the best Flag Day presentation, which was won yesterday by St. Margaret School in Bel Air. Students presented drawings and the history of the flag and performed a skit on flag etiquette.

Many children were eager to share what they knew about the history of the flag. Yet when asked about the best part of their day, most agreed with Dustin Teves.

"It's getting out of school, so it's pretty cool," said the fourth-grader at Mount Washington Elementary in North Baltimore.

After the last photograph was taken and the last helicopter flew away, the children piled onto the 75 buses and vans that had brought them there.

Asked what she would tell her parents when she got home, Ciera Laury, an 11-year-old from Abbottston Elementary in North Baltimore, paused, looked shyly at her feet and said, "It was fun."

Pub Date: 5/24/96