Several preliminary steps for the new Starke County Veteran’s Memorial were approved by the county park board Tuesday. The memorial will be placed on the southeast corner of the courthouse square. It will include the names of those killed in action in wars and conflicts dating back to the Civil War, etched in a black granite stone.
Kathy Norem is a member of both the park board and the memorial committee. “Our intent is that is will be a reverent place, someplace that you can go and sit and meditate, much like the memorials in Washington, D.C., a very, very nice and very relaxing and very calming and very spiritual type of place,” she explained. The project is scheduled to break ground on Memorial Day and wrap up by Veterans Day this year.
On Tuesday, the park board officially accepted the responsibility of overseeing the project and approved an agreement with the Northern Indiana Community Foundation, allowing the foundation to handle donations using a pass-through fund. Board members also approved a contract with Wearly Monuments, which will provide the stone, engraving, and installation. Due to the project’s tight schedule, the granite had already been ordered, even before the contract was approved.
The park board also agreed to appoint the current memorial committee members as an official advisory committee. It includes Starke County Council member and veteran Bob Sims, county commissioner and park board member Kathy Norem, Commissioner Bryan Cavender, Knox City Council Member and veteran Jeff Berg, Mark Smith, and Jay Weinberg. Norem highlighted each member’s expertise, noting Smith’s experience with other memorial projects and Berg’s enthusiasm for historical research.
She said the projected cost of the project is $173,000, but the committee plans to raise $200,000 in case of contingencies. So far, the Knox VFW has chipped in $57,000, and engineer Bob Aloi has offered to donate his services. The group has scheduled meetings with a number of other veterans’ organizations and community groups. Norem has also put together an application for a community foundation grant, and officials are asking about funding opportunities from the Kankakee-Iroquois Regional Planning Commission, Kankakee Valley REMC, and U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski’s office. The committee will sell commemorative bricks for $150 apiece.
Going forward, County Attorney Marty Lucas said the park board will have to finalize a site agreement, as well as a policy of which names should be included and which shouldn’t. Berg noted that process can be complicated and gave an example of one World War I veteran. “One . . . was not in the army,” Berg explained. “No. He was disabled, and so he went over there. He was a secretary in the YMCA, Young Men’s Christian Association, if I’m correct on that, and he died in combat, for goodness sakes. They overran his position, the Germans did, and he fought fiercely, ferociously.”
Berg also noted that some individuals appear to have a closer connection to Starke County than others. But he stressed that anyone on the county’s current veteran’s memorial will be honored on the new one.
