Last year, during his freshman year at Purvis High School, Hayden Hardiman saw instances online of residents designing flags for their cities and communities – not just in the United States, but in other countries as well.
Taking inspiration from that, Hardiman decided to make a design for his own flag for the City of Purvis, which was adopted by the Purvis Board of Aldermen at its May 7 regular meeting.
“I thought I could do it as well; I didn’t realize at the time that Purvis had a city flag,” said Hardiman, who is now a sophomore at the high school.
The new flag design features gold borders with purple ends on each side. Two gold lines run down the center of the flag, bordering the words “Friendly City in the Pines” and a five-pointed gold star.
Words underneath the star read “Purvis, MS, Established 1888” within a red arrow pointing toward the center of the flag.
Hardiman said the design takes heavy inspiration from the Mississippi state flag, which features a white magnolia blossom and the words “In God We Trust” over blue Canadian pale with two gold borders on a red field. The previous Purvis flag featured a pine tree in the background with the “Friendly City in the Pines” wording superimposed over that.
“’Friendly City in the Pines’ comes from the old flag of Purvis, and that’s the city motto of Purvis,” Hardiman said. “The star with the column in the middle, that’s meant to represent the World War II memorial here (in Purvis), because back in World War II, Purvis had a lot of volunteers go fight for the U.S.
“So I thought that was a significant part in Purvis’s history that deserved to be represented on the flag. The purple and gold on the outside, those are Purvis school colors. I felt that I also needed to include the fact that it is Purvis, so I put when it was established.”
Hardiman first presented his design to board members in May 2023, at which point aldermen suggested a few changes to his design.
“No one expected it to take a full year, but it did, and I just presented (the final version),” Hardiman said.
The flag has been officially adopted and is now flying over Purvis City Hall, with other flags expected to be ordered for locations such at the high school.
“I feel proud of it,” Hardiman said. “I think it’s an improvement over the previous one, because like most people, I didn’t even know that Purvis had a flag before.
“The only place where it was, was inside the city hall building – there was nowhere else in Purvis where it was. So I feel like now that this one will be flown across the city, I feel like people in Purvis will know more about it.”
Purvis Mayor Roger Herrin said he is happy with Hardiman and his design of the flag.
“We helped him do it, and we sent off and had the flags made,” he said. “He is obviously very smart with this kind of stuff, and it’s great that he wanted to participate in something for the city.
“I’ve been mayor 30 years, and I think this is our third city flag. But (Hardiman) was really excited, and it did us all good, and it’s wonderful for him to want to do that and be interested in that. He’s a special kid, and I wish more of them would get involved in doing stuff like that.”
