A community effort to honor Starke County’s veterans is now “in the final stretch.” Kathy Norem is a member of the Starke County Veterans Memorial project committee. She told WKVI’s Charlie Adams last week that the stones had been set, the flagpoles had been raised, the sidewalk was being poured, and the commemorative pavers were being installed.
“It has been less than one year since we started focusing on this project and deciding what we wanted to move forward with and raising funds, and we did it in the middle of a COVID crisis,” Norem noted. “By the time it’s all been said and done, to date, we have raised $274,000.” But beyond that, all the labor has been donated.
The new memorial plaza on the southeast corner of the courthouse square in Knox will honor all of the veterans on the existing memorial, plus several more. Compiling the list of names proved to be an emotional task for project committee member Jeff Berg. “Yes, I have wept in my loft researching these names, and I continue to do so,” he said. “We’re going to enshrine – there’s 42 more names than what are up there on the southwest corner of the historic square at this time.”
Norem says all of those fallen soldiers will be remembered during a solemn ceremony on Veterans Day starting at noon. “We have honor guards that will be there,” she says. “They will be doing a 21-gun salute. We’ll have ‘Taps.’ We’ll be raising the flags for the first time, and we will unveil the monument.”
That will be followed by a luncheon at the Nancy J. Dembowski Community Center, featuring additional comments from the project committee and a keynote speaker. There were only a few tickets remaining, as of last Friday.
