Judy Leu freely admits she’s super patriotic.

A retired Army 1st Sgt. who lives in Renton, Leu was at the Oak Harbor Senior Center June 11 to present the program “27 Flags” to a crowd of more than 40 senior citizens, many of them veterans.

“When I first joined the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Ladies Auxiliary, I found a box. In it were 27 flags and a description for each one,” Leu said, explaining the flags used to be carried in parades.

“I didn’t know the U.S. flag had changed 27 times,” she continued, “I thought ‘This is too good, it needs to be shared.’”

So Leu developed the 27 Flags program, which she has performed over the years at schools, nursing homes and wherever else she is asked to do it. The Senior Center presentation was in honor of Flag Day on June 14.

“I thought this would be just a great celebration of our nation’s flag,” Senior Center program coordinator Roxann Dunn-Terry told the audience.

The stage was a field of red, white and blue, filled with all 27 American flags that have flown over the U.S. since 1777.

One by one, as Leu read its history, the flags were held up for the audience to see, the narrative filled with interesting facts about each.

“This is the second flag of the U.S.,” said Leu. “It has 15 stripes (rather than 13) and the union has 15 stars. It flew during the war of 1812 and the Barbary Coast and is the one Francis Scott Key wrote of when he composed “The Star Spangled Banner.” (It became the national anthem in 1931.)

In 1816, the flag went back to the 13 stripes called for by the Continental Congress. Flags changed as quickly as states were admitted to the union, although the 21st flag has the distinction of having the shortest life, flying officially for just six days.

The nation’s 25th flag had the longest reign before our current 50-star banner.

“It flew for 47 years, longer than any previous flags,” said Leu. “It was the flag that flew over Pearl Harbor in 1941 and it flew during World War I, World War II and the Korean War.”

The same flag that flew over Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, was flown over the White House on Aug. 14, 1945, when the Japanese accepted the terms of surrender, spelling an end to the second World War.

The 26th flag marked the entrance of the state of Alaska, the largest in the Union. Finally, the flag took its current form when Hawaii, after applying for statehood 56 years earlier, was admitted to the Union in 1959.

Ingeborg Johnston, a nurse during WWII and one of the first German war brides, said she loved the presentation.

“I’m a fierce American,” she said, “and I learned a lot. It always comes back to teaching it in the schools.”

“I thought it was wonderful,” said Evelyn Warnken, who is responsible for starting Oak Harbor’s display of flags throughout town on special occasions.

“I got the first $1,000 together and wrote up a brochure to help raise money,” she said, adding that the Oak Harbor Lions Club does a good job getting the flags out now.

In the end, Leu’s patriotism got the best of her, choking up a bit as she finished her program with this tribute:

“This is the land of the free, the home of the brave and long may she wave,” said Leu.