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Carrot-Top is now Freedom and Glory — different name, same people, same commitment to you.
A funeral home in Redfield, South Dakota has spent ten years flying flags for veterans, first responders, and organ donors. Kelly Hyke shares why he started, and what he’d tell anyone thinking of doing the same.
Episode 16 of Tales of American Spirit, the Freedom and Glory podcast
When a veteran dies in Redfield, South Dakota, a flag goes up at Hyke Funeral Home. Not just the American flag. That one has been flying out front for ten years. A second flag goes up underneath it, the flag of the branch that veteran served in. Both fly until after the committal.
If the family lost a firefighter, a police officer, an EMT, or someone who donated their organs, a flag for them goes up too. Kelly Hyke, who owns the funeral home with his wife Bonnie, has been doing this since the day they bought the place.
He didn’t expect any of it to mean as much as it does. Ask him today, and he’ll tell you he’d do it a hundred times over.
Before Kelly became a funeral director, he spent 18 years in law enforcement. He had a wife, two small kids, and the work carried risks he didn’t want to keep carrying. So he went back to school.
In September 2001, after a degree in mortuary science, he became a funeral director. He has been at it for twenty-five years now. In Bonnie’s words, his next career is going to be retirement.
The First Flag
In December 2015, Kelly and Bonnie bought Hyke Funeral Home in Redfield. There were no flags out front. They put up a 25-foot flagpole, started flying the American flag, and ordered a flag for each branch of the military. When a veteran passed and the family confirmed an honorable discharge, Kelly would raise the branch flag underneath the American. Both would fly from the day of the death until after the committal.
There’s a quieter detail most people never see. When Kelly does a removal at a hospital or nursing home, his cot has a navy blue quilt on one side and an American flag on the other. If the person who passed was a veteran, the flag side is the one he uses. He drapes it over the cot before wheeling them out. It’s the first piece of the goodbye.
Every flag gets photographed and posted to the funeral home’s Facebook page. Kelly keeps a letter in his office from one of the very first families he raised a branch flag for. The story behind it is in the episode.
More Than Veterans
After a few years, people started asking about other forms of service. What about firefighters? Law enforcement? EMS? Kelly had been law enforcement himself. He knew exactly what they meant. He ordered flags for those branches and kept going.
The donor flag came differently. A donation organization rep was at the funeral home one day, saw the flags, and offered him a donor flag he had never seen before. It’s plain white with a single emblem in the center. He has been flying it ever since.
The Day the Rope Broke
A few weeks before this episode was recorded, the rope on Kelly’s flagpole snapped on a windy South Dakota afternoon. He was in his office when he heard the clunk on the steel roof, and the flags slid down past his window onto the ground. The pulley was 30 feet up. He couldn’t get the flags back up by himself.
He called around and got Kurt’s name. Guy in town with a boom truck. Kelly explained the situation. Kurt said he’d be there that afternoon. Sure enough, by the end of the day the flags were flying again.
What Kurt told Kelly stayed with him.
“You flew the flag for my loved one and I knew what it meant to me. So I want to have that opportunity for the next family member.”
That’s what happens in a town of 2,000. The funeral home isn’t a stranger. The flag isn’t an abstraction. People drive by every day and notice when something’s different. When the flag isn’t flying, they call. When something needs fixing, they show up.
Ten Years In
Kelly has brought the tradition inside, too. American and South Dakota flags now stand on either side of the casket in the chapel during every service. Not just for veterans. For everyone. He’s also looking ahead to America’s 250th birthday this year and a flag for the funeral home to fly for the anniversary.
Ask Kelly what he’d say to a community leader who might want to start a tradition like this, and he comes back to a line he said almost in passing: I don’t think people realize the significant impact they make until they do it.
He didn’t expect any of this when he put up that first flagpole. He thought it was a way to say thank you.
His advice is simple. Do it. The investment is small. The return is bigger than you’ll expect.
Listen to the Full Conversation
There’s more in the full episode. Kelly tells the story of working the funeral home phones in his hometown as a high school kid, before cell phones existed. He explains how he met Bonnie when she was a Canadian customs officer and he was a US officer working the border, and the Canadian flag they still fly at home on July 1st. He describes the 60-pound lab-pit-bull mix who knows when he’s had a hard day. And he talks about working at a Chicago funeral home that did 2,500 calls a year, and what a death call feels like in a town where you know everyone.
