The Story of Benny Benson and Our Fantastic Souvenier

A couple years ago, while I was packing up everything and getting ready to sell the family home, I was flipping through some photo albums put together by my mother when she first made her way to Alaska. My mother is a native of southern California and in the sixties she moved to Anchorage to teach, eventually meeting and marrying my father while she was there. She always kept such detailed and artistic albums so it was a joy to go through them, reading all the details that she wrote so neatly next to photos and other objects (her handwriting hasn't changed!). It was in one of these albums that I came across one of the coolest Alaska souvenirs around, a small Alaska state flag autographed by the designer of the flag, Benny Benson. When I saw it on the page, I made sure to take a quick picture of it before I moved on. Now, I had heard about this memento through the years from my mother but this was the first time I actually saw it. 

The Alaska state flag signed by Benny Benson, the boy who had designed it.

The story of Benny Benson was an interesting one. Born in 1913 to a Swedish-American father and a Alutiiq-Russian mother, Benny and his brother were placed in an orphanage at the age of 3 when his mother died and his father could not care for him. It was at that orphanage in 1927 in Unalaska that Benny entered a state-wide contest to design a flag for the (then) territory of Alaska. As a prize for winning the contest, Benny was given $1000, a gold watch, and a trip to Washington D.C. 

So how did we get our hands on an autographed Alaska state flag? Well, according to my mother (and her detailed photo album), "He is the only living person who has designed a state flag. We had the privilege of meeting Benny in Anchorage and having diner with him. Benny signed thousands of these little flags the Saturday that we saw him. The money from the sale of the flags went toward a college scholarship for Miss Alaska." Benny, unfortunately, passed away a year or two after my mother met him at the young age of 58 in 1972.

While searching for more on this story I was able to find an interview that Benny did for the Anchorage school district in 1971. Some of the footage is of poor quality but it's still an interesting listen. Skip ahead to the 3:10 mark to hear all about entering and winning the flag contest. It's a wonderful story and amazing that my mother was able to get this flag signed and I hope it remains a treasure in our family for generations to come. (I just wish that the tape used to put the flag in the book hadn't discolored the flag a bit.)

After I finished writing this entry I also came across a cute animated recap of Benny Benson's story in the show Molly of Denali. I hope my kids will enjoy this.

Update: After posting this I checked again with my mother of her experience. According to her, she and my father saw Benny Benson at a parade in Anchorage (he was the grand marshal). The two rushed to try and get him to sign their flag after the parade but weren't able to catch him. Having given up on getting the flag signed they went to dinner only to spot Benny at the restaurant. My mother recalls telling my father, "Isn't that Benny Benson?" to which he replied, "He doesn't look anything like that." Of course, it was him and they were able to get his signature.