Dan Mooney and the C Hill flag: colorful and tough

Now that winter sunshine has exposed the skeleton of the wind-ravaged 120-by-67-foot U.S. flag above Carson City, Dan Mooney and the nonprofit "C" Hill Flag Foundation are looking at their options.

The choices are to replace it with an identical flag at a cost of about $5,000; to create a fail-safe, top-quality flag with thicker-gauge banner material for about $20,000; or to use 8,000 red, white and blue-painted cinder blocks.

But not replacing the flag is not an option.

"Oh, we'll replace it all right," said Mooney, president of the foundation. "We've still got more than $3,000 in the bank -- what would we do, just give that money back?"

The question is how much to spend on a replacement for the flag destroyed by mid-December's record winds. Mooney, along with organizers Gil Ayarbe and Josh Buscay, is wondering just how much the community wants to pay.

"Here we are, three guys making the decision about whether to put a $20,000 flag up there," said Mooney. "We really need to know how much the community wants to invest."

He said the probability of there being other 100 mph winds is low, and that the original design withstood 75 mph winds with cables secured to rocks.

The "C" Hill flag, completed on Oct. 19, 2001, during the post 9-11 surge in patriotism, has been an all-volunteer effort paid for entirely by donations.

Mooney has been at the helm of the project with Ayarbe from the beginning -- though he doesn't like to admit it.

"Volunteer Dan Mooney is fine," he said, listing how he should be described in the paper. In addition to being the president and founder of the "C" Hill flag foundation, he's taken aerial photos of the flag, used his acre off of Stephanie Lane to set the flag's base up during planning, and organized the spotlight that encircled the sign of Carson City's patriotism on the Fourth of July.

But there is more to Mooney than just his "C" Hill flag efforts.

His hobby is blacksmithing, and he has fixed up his kitchen on Angels Camp Drive with handmade pan racks and forge-welded counter supports.

His three daughters live in Las Vegas. Courtney Mooney has a master's degree in restoration architecture from Columbia University. Lesley Mosher, a middle school English teacher, serves in the Army National Guard. Kristy Green studied fine arts at Brigham Young University and speaks fluent German. Stepson Dave Mosher is an engineer who graduated from the University of Nevada at Reno's Mackay School of Mines.

Mooney also gets a kick out of his wife, Sally, who watched atomic bomb blasts growing up. "She's an old Nevadan, you know, a cowgirl," he says.

Sally Mooney was born and raised 65 miles south of Ely in Sunnyside on her family's cattle ranch. She has written a book about her family history called "The John L. and Rose Ellen Whipple Family." She told the story of her great grandmother Prudence Ann Ramsey, who walked West with Brigham Young's wagon when she was 6.

"She was an ornery old thing, but she could tell stories," Sally Mooney said with a laugh.

The couple, married almost 26 years, walks together on C Hill with their black lab mix, Pal Joe, several times a week.

Dan Mooney is also a psychologist, who earned his degree in 1964. He said he started the first behavior-modification program in the state at the old neuro-psychiatric ward of the Nevada State Mental Health Institute in Sparks.

As another hobby, Mooney restores things like a 1965 Allis Chalmers tractor with power take-off, a three-point hitch and a front loader.

"I use it now," he said. "It's a working tractor."

He also restored the Monarch iron range made by Malleable Iron Range Co. in Beaver Dam, Wis., in his kitchen. It was a rusted heap when he got it, but now he uses it to cook on and warm the house.

"Made home fries, eggs and bacon on it this morning," he explained, while sticking another piece of wood in the left burner.

Mooney works for the city, along with Joe McCarthy, as a consultant to the Redevelopment Authority Citizens Advisory Committee. Mooney wrote the strategic plan for the economic revitalization of downtown and is implementing the operations plan, he said.

But keeping so busy hasn't distracted Mooney from his passion for the "C" Hill flag. He says the foundation extended its permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service to use the "C " Hill land three months ago. The group has to follow regulations to keep the site clean and safe.

"As long as you use your head, you're not going to violate any of the regulations," he said.