Half Mast

Some people would apparently give up their job rather than lower a flag in honor of former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. In fact, that's exactly what L.F. Eason III did. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half mast Monday as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley. When a superior ordered the lab to follow the order, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half mast.
Late Sunday night, Eason e-mailed nine of his employees in the state Metrology Lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers, telling them not to lower the flags. "Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote, according to e-mails released in response to a public records request. Eason told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms, who died last week, because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
In e-mails with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately. Though he's only 51, Eason chose to retire, although he pleaded several times to be allowed to stay at the lab. Eason was paid $65,235 a year as the lab's manager. No one in the governor's office was aware of any times in recent memory when a state employee refused to lower a flag. (Ryan Teague Beckwith, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 7/09/08).