Kristie Mullenix, left, designed and created the flags used by Free State High School’s marching band. Her daughter, Kajsa, is a senior and a band member.

Kristie Mullenix designed and created the flags used by the Free State High School marching band. The design has a stained-glass effect when flags are lit with the bright lights of the football field.

Though it’s been more than a decade now since it graduated its first class in 1998, Free State High School is still building traditions.

Kristie Mullenix helped the school’s marching band create its latest tradition one stitch at a time.

Mullenix, parent of senior mellophone player Kajsa, decided after making 10 single-starred flags for the school’s color guard, the band ought to have a marching flag, too. After getting the go-ahead from band teacher Randy Fillmore, she spent her three-day Labor Day weekend creating a screaming Firebird flag from scratch.

“Mom was a seamstress, my grandmother was a seamstress. They both did that type of work back in the day,” says Kristie Mullenix, who teaches at Deerfield School and makes wedding dresses as a side job. “My mom actually did work at Dodge City High School in the late ’60s, ’70s and did huge flags that had their school mascot as well as the longhorn steer, which was the mascot for the marching band itself. And she did huge ones when they went to the Cotton Bowl.

“I thought if my mom could do a dozen or more, she says, “I could probably do one.”

With use of an overhead projector, Mullenix created a pattern from the image that appears on the Free State band uniforms: the school’s mascot, the Firebird, screaming while in flight. Then, using the light from her sliding-glass patio doors, she stitched the bird onto a dark green background. Next, she removed the green from behind the pattern to create a stained-glass effect when the flag is lit with the bright lights of the football field.

“At the next evening practice prior to the first home game, my daughter presented it to the band as a gift from our family for her senior year,” Mullenix says.

Fillmore says he was impressed at the quality of workmanship on the flag and hopes to use it for as many years as he can squeeze out of the flag.

“I like it because it does give a new quality to our entrance into the stadium, and with the new stadium and everything, it worked well,” Fillmore says. “I love the finished product — we’ll keep using it.”

Kajsa Mullenix carried the flag during that first outing, and after that Fillmore selected a senior each week out of the 38 in the band during the season, which ended Nov. 13 at Olathe North.

Although the season is over, Kajsa Mullenix says she’s really pleased with the tradition her mother has helped her leave on the school’s marching band.

“I didn’t think she’d be able to get it done as fast as she did because it’s really detailed and fancy,” Kajsa Mullenix says. “But I thought it was really cool — inspiring — a really good way to leave a mark on Free State a little bit.”