Red, white and blue — in wood

Bieber boys make American flags, crosses as a source of pride, profit
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

Many folks pledge allegiance to a flag with 13 stripes of alternating red and white and 50 stars in a field of blue, made of cloth that stands limp when the wind doesn’t blow.

The flags that the three sons of Shawano County Sheriff Adam Bieber make are a little more sturdy, though, with interesting touches on each one.

Will, West and Wyatt Bieber have been hard at work making a variety of American flags to sell and give to people, all out of wood. While many of them are the traditional flags, others have been made in the old Betsy Ross style with the 13 stars from when the United States was first established. Still others have the words of the current Pledge of Allegiance emblazoned on it, and some bear the words of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding the right to bear arms.

The flags are not the only things that the Bieber boys make in red, white and blue, though. The American flag imagery also shows on a number of crosses they created, combining patriotism and faith.

The common theme to them all is a symbol that has kept the country whole for well over two centuries, one that gives the Bieber family and many others in Wisconsin a sense of pride when they see it flying over homes and businesses or coming down the road in a community parade.

What started out as a project that the sheriff hoped would keep his sons occupied in the early days of the pandemic after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ordered all schools closed has turned into a passion project for the boys that Adam Bieber believes has taught them some valuable lessons about running a business.

“(Wife) Amy and I have both encouraged them to keep doing it,” the sheriff said. “They’ve thought about getting other jobs but now that they’re back into baseball, back into football, back into wrestling and all those things that are going on, working out of the garage actually works really well for them, and I think they’re finding that out. They can work it around their schedule.”

Adam Bieber added that his sons seem to take pride in what they do, especially when they deliver the flags to paying customers or organizations they decide to give them to. Some of the flags have been prizes won at community raffles.

“They’ve donated to the Boys and Girls Club, to some veterans groups, and they gave to help a benefit for Doug Rogers recently,” he said. “They see the value in giving and helping people to raise money for good, quality organizations in the community.”

West Bieber, Adam’s middle son, noted that when the project began during the pandemic, the flags were not the original idea for the project.

“We were going to make birdhouses, but then we thought about flags,” he said. “After we made our first flag, we thought, this is nice; we’re going to do this.”

Will Bieber, the eldest brother, added that the flag project was better than the alternative, given the length of the pandemic.

“We just kind of sat at home, played video games most of the time,” he said. “Then we thought we should probably do something with all of the time at home. We wanted to make some money, too, because teenagers want money to do stuff.”

There were many different materials the Biebers could have looked to use to make flags.

“The wood, I thought, would look the best,” Will Bieber said. “It’s probably cheaper than buying metal flags or different materials. We saw some wooden flags online and just thought that we should go with wood.”

The flags are made in bulk and usually take about one or two hours per flag to be constructed. The stars and any other special items like writing are made through templates and then glued on, and the boys have been quick to change whenever someone has requested a variation.

“People have different preferences,” West Bieber said. “Some people want them normal, while others want some writing on it. There’s just a variety.”

Word soon got out into the community about the Biebers and their flags once they posted photos on Facebook and Instagram.

“More people have asked for them, and we just keep on making them,” West Bieber said. “We love doing them. They’re nice.”

While the flags have been the main attraction in the boys’ woodworking, the crosses have also caught people’s attention.

“We just thought, what if we were to make crosses?” West Bieber said. “We put together a couple of designs, put them together, and then we did that. It went pretty well.”

“Whatever came to mind, we did them,” Will Bieber added.

It was trial and error to come up with the first ideal flag. Will Bieber noted that the prototypes were plain and needed “something to spice them up.”

“We had no burning (on the wood) at first; we had the wood and we just stained it and that was it,” he said. “We thought we’d spice it up by adding some burning marks and wooden stars instead of white spray paint. It was a process.”

So far, the boys have made about 300 of the flags. Recently, they made an American flag that also tied in with breast cancer awareness, and another one was made for National Nurses Week.

“We were just trying to keep them busy when we started this. Everything was canceled and shut down, and we wanted to keep them busy and doing something positive with their time and learning something,” Adam Bieber said. ”It really morphed into a lot of good life lessons.”


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com