A flag once again flies on Virginia Tech’s Lane Hall

For the first time in over two decades, a flag flies proudly over Lane Hall, and three veterans helped make it happen for the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets.

Last Friday, a crew from the university’s facilities department arrived with the equipment to add the final pieces of hardware needed to hoist the Corps of Cadets flag onto the pole. Three members of the crew are veterans —   Stephen Davis, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and Benjamin Brown, who served in the U.S. Army, did the work more than 100 feet in the air, and Wesley Woodyard, also a former Marine, assisted from the ground.

“I’m just glad I can help, and I hope people enjoy it,” Brown said of the flag. “I appreciate all the things the troops do, and good luck to all the cadets.”

Cadets raised and lowered the American flag atop Lane Hall daily until the early 1990s. Today, they use a larger flagpole that is surrounded by the Rock — a memorial to Virginia Tech alumni lost in World War I — and other monuments.

Over the years, Lane Hall’s cupola fell into disrepair. Renovations to the building, which was added to the National Historic Register in 2015, mean the flagpole can once again be used.

Lane Hall, constructed in 1888, was Barracks No. 1, the first home of cadets on campus. The presence of the corps flag is emblematic of that heritage, said Maj. Gen. Randal Fullhart, commandant of cadets.

The American flag will continue to fly from the larger flagpole facing Alumni Mall. This plaza forms the base for a maroon-orange brick sidewalk that forms the largest “VT” on campus to connect Lane, Pearson, and New Cadet halls.