Kennebunk High School took a progressive step on Friday, March 3rd when they raised a Pride Flag in the front lawn of the school. The school’s Gay-Straight-Trans-Alliance club, including member Will Blastos, worked hard to get this into motion. They were delighted to finally to see it happen; however, all their work came to a quick close when only four days later the flag was taken down.

Will Blastos is a junior at Kennebunk High who became part of the GSTA club at the beginning of the year in hopes to “build up the club, so we could spread its ideals of acceptance.” Blastos was front and center during the flag raising ceremony and gave a brief speech to celebrate the accomplishment. Will described the moment as “Amazing. The amount of love and acceptance that was present was wonderful to see… So many people came out in support and that was really amazing.”

Unfortunately, all this excitement ended when the kids got to school Wednesday morning and saw that the flag had been taken down. This came as a shock to not only Blastos but also a majority of the school, as Kennebunk High was the first school in Maine to raise the equality flag. Blastos felt that “We put up the flag to show our school is a welcoming and safe place for all students regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity”, so for it to be taken down so quickly was a surprise.

When asked how he felt about the flag being taken down, Blastos stated that “To see it taken down four days later proved to me that we have a lot of work to do. People need to be educated as to why we raised the flag.” Will described how much the flag raising meant to not only himself as a member of the GSTA club, but as a member of the community, and was empowered to fight once again to raise the flag.

Blastos had a final message at the end of our interview in which he left a request. He asked that “You as students and members of the community stand with us. We will fight for the flag to be raised again.”