Published: July 05, 2008 04:21 pm      

Honoring our freedom at the fair

Lions Club will dedicate memorial wall today at 3 p.m.

GREENTOWN — Larry LaRowe hopes Howard County 4-H fairgoers will take a few minutes out of their fun this year to remember the veterans who make their freedom possible.

They’ll have a brick and marble reminder in front of the fair office, as the Greentown Lions Club has constructed a memorial wall there on the fairground.

The Lions will dedicate the wall at 3 p.m. today.

LaRowe said as co-chairman of the Lions grounds committee, “I spend a lot of time on a mower by myself, and I get to thinking about things. I just felt like we needed to have something for the veterans.”

The result is a 50-foot long, 38-inch tall permanent brick wall, with black marble insets with the names of all the wars that have involved American troops since World War I. It also includes the U.S. flag, along with the state, MIA and service flags, and a concrete slab with a black marble bench, inscribed with the words “All gave some, and some gave all.”

LaRowe said it is “a tribute to all the veterans, living and dead, from World War I through the war we’re having right now.” He added that it’s not just a Greentown memorial, but is “a Howard County thing.”

Today’s dedication will include a musical performance from a First Church of the Nazarene quartet, a talk by Eastern High School teacher Peter Heck, raising of military flags, laying of a wreath on the marble bench and a 21-gun salute. Lynn Wilson will sing the national anthem.

LaRowe hopes the memorial reminds people of the veterans and their sacrifice.

“They’re trying to write this out of the history books. If I can stop it or slow it down for 5 minutes, that’s exactly what I intend to do. In a good year at the fair, 40,000 people could see this, and that’s what I want. I want people to see and remember.”