Kids turn paper rolls into a flag in an attempt to get in the Guinness book

ALBANY - You might say they were flushed with success.

Fifty-two youngsters in Albany's Community After-school Program spent Saturday morning constructing a giant American flag - out of the cardboard cores of empty toilet-paper rolls.

It took exactly 4,524 rolls, strung on lengths of twine 21 feet long, to construct the flag on the gym floor at Takena Elementary School.

The goal, explained Director Cass Templeton, is to enter the event in the Guinness Book of World Records.

CAP is a state-licensed child care program that operates in four Albany elementary schools before and after school. It serves children in kindergarten through fifth grades.

"The kids wanted to get into the Guinness Book," Templeton said, "So we tried to come up with some ideas that would be inexpensive for us, using a material that is recyclable, that is readily available, at no cost."

The annual book of world records contains such various notations as the world's noisiest land animal (the howler monkey), the person with the longest ear hair (5.19 inches) and the most worms eaten in 30 seconds (Mark Hogg swallowed 94 in October 2000).

However, Templeton discovered, it has no toilet-paper-roll American flags at all.

"We did extensive research," she said. "Another bearing on our decision."

Guinness researchers said they were interested, so CAP students got to work.

Kids began collecting empty rolls last September and started painting them in March. They wound up with a few too many blue ones, which had to be repainted red or white at the last minute.

CAP staff members helped by figuring out the number of empty rolls needed for the 11{-foot-high, 21-foot-long flag. They also helped the children group the rolls side by side and staple them together, six at a time, to speed up the threading process.

It took 81 minutes to lay out the Stars and Stripes, carpeting the gym floor in red, white and blue. In keeping with Guinness rules, the effort was documented by West Albany High School student videographers and by impartial witnesses, who signed affidavits that were notarized on the spot.

The finished flag probably will be donated to the Oregon National Guard Armory, and CAP officials plan to send pictures of it to Albany's Bravo Company, 52nd Engineers, who are serving in the Middle East.

Templeton said at least four people asked whether the group was making any statement by using toilet-paper rolls.

"None whatsoever!" she said. "They were free, and they were recyclable."