PARK CITY - To members of the Park City American Legion Post 100, the feeling and respect of tradition that can only be found in small towns scattered across the country is never more evident than Memorial Day weekend.

It's when about three dozen volunteers, including kids, spend part of their weekend helping 20 veterans honor their fallen comrades or when a member travels more than 1,000 miles simply to attend a Memorial Day service in his hometown.

"It's pretty touching," Post Adjutant Rich Simons said. "It allows people to realize they're doing something for our veterans."

Saturday afternoon at Park City Cemetery, the legion post, neighbors, friends and youth groups from Stillwater and Yellowstone counties set up the annual Avenue of Flags in advance of Monday's remembrance of nearly 140 veterans from the area and their families.

In its 10th year, it now features 138 3-by-5-foot American flags on 16-foot poles lining the plots and walkways at the small cemetery in Stillwater County. Each flag is adorned with a thin white ribbon with the name of a different veteran.

"Some of the flags are for vets going back to the Civil and Spanish-American wars," Post Commander Mike Alexander said.

One of the 20 or so post members helping to plant the flags Saturday was Bryce Owen, who grew up in Park City and now lives near Portland, Ore. The 1983 Park City High graduate was on a business trip to Chicago this week and decided to take a detour and spend the weekend in Montana for the Avenue of Flags and accompanying Memorial Day services.

Owen served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the first Gulf War, and his mother is a longtime member of the legion's auxiliary post. He said that between his roots in the area and his military service, the decision was an easy one.

"I grew up here, and I plan on being buried here," he said. "I come from this." Mixed in among the veterans were more than a dozen area kids from Future Farmers of America and the Young Marines placing the flags into their stands. The Young Marines is a program set up through the Marine Corps League designed to give kids ages 8 to 18 the skills to make the right decisions as they grow up.

Dave Kenat, commander of the local Young Marines and a Yellowstone County Sheriff's Reserve Deputy, said Memorial Day teaches an important lesson to the kids that will hopefully stick with them.

"We continue to emphasize to the kids the American qualities that make this nation so great, those virtues and principle of our founding fathers," he said. "We are remembering the people that sacrificed their very way of life for our liberty. They've set an example of living an honorable life."

For at least one of the half-dozen Young Marines on hand, those lessons have made an impact. Cameron Gibbs, 14, is a corporal in the Young Marines and a seventh-grader at Riverside Middle School in Billings and hopes to enter military service when he gets older.

"It's a good community service, but we also want to carry on these traditions," he said.

Alexander said the Avenue of Flags was inspired by a similar event in Big Timber. When it first started, Post 100 was only able to honor 22 veterans with flags. Since, members have scoured the graveyard, and Park City area, for other veterans to add to the list and have taken requests from people to add their family members, bringing it to its current total, and new names are added every year.

While Monday's ceremonies may not draw thousands of people or include fancy displays, to the Park City American Legion Post 100 members and the surrounding community, they maintain a sense of tradition and personal involvement that leaves its mark.

"It's infectious," Owen said. "I've got the personal roots here that make it special to me."