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Capt. Styles Joins Those He Honored Daily

Sarasota Herald-Tribune file photo

Ralph Styles rings the bell from his WWII submarine, the Seadevil, in front of his Siesta Key home in 2000. Styles died Monday at the age of 98.

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By MARK ZALOUDEK

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: October 9, 2008

SIESTA KEY - A simple act of paying respect to the flag and the men and women who served in uniform turned retired Navy Capt. Ralph Styles into something of a folk hero.

Day after day, year after year for perhaps 15 years, Styles has ceremoniously raised and lowered the flag at his beachfront home accompanied by patriotic music on his boom box. A neighborhood bugler and drummer eventually joined in, and in recent years the twice-a-day tribute to Old Glory drew fellow patriots, curious onlookers and applause.

Styles, a Pearl Harbor survivor and, at 98, one of the oldest living graduates of the Naval Academy, died Tuesday of pneumonia and congestive heart failure during a brief hospitalization.

He proudly raised and lowered the flag at his Beach Road home as recently as last Friday.

"He became quite a celebrity in his old age," said his daughter, Anne Overbeck of Hingham, Mass., and Sarasota.

Neighborhood residents and beachgoers often gathered at sunset to watch the 15-minute ceremony unfold on his front lawn. After a bugler played taps and the flag was lowered and folded, Styles invited onlookers to sing along with "Amazing Grace" to honor those who lost their lives, or to join in as each military branch's song was sung.

"Some nights there will be about 10 people, and other nights there will be as many as 200," his daughter said.

The former naval officer's patriotic routine drew television and newspaper reporters over the years and was featured on "A Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins" and another Tampa Bay-area public television broadcast, which featured World War II veterans.

During his 30-year military career, Styles was awarded a Legion of Merit, two Navy Crosses and eight Naval Unit Citations for his heroism. He commanded a submarine during World War II that destroyed a Japanese submarine and five Japanese merchant ships in Tokyo Bay in 1944.

After retiring to Sarasota in 1962, Styles helped establish New College as its first planning director before the formerly private, liberal arts college opened in 1964.

In addition to his daughter, Styles is survived by another daughter, Linda Styles, of Sarasota; a sister, Virginia Price of Thomasville, N.C.; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

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