The annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Blackford Walking Trail and Veterans Memorial has been cancelled this year, but several opportunties remain for people to pay their respects to America’s servicemen and women.
Brent Witherspoon, organizer of the Blackford services, said spring rains, coupled with delays in preparation due to prolonged clean-up from January’s ice storm, have made a mess of the area where the service is held, particularly the parking lot.
“I hate to do it, because I love doing this,” Witherspoon said Friday. “I'd rather not get people over there and get them in a mess.”
The Memorial Day service was initially planned for Saturday at the Walk of Honor, an area dedicated to local veterans of all wars. Witherspoon said the spring rains that have already fallen just made it too risky to ensure adequate parking.
Instead, Witherspoon is encouraging usual visitors to the ceremony to attend a barbecue dinner Saturday scheduled as a benefit for injured Iraq War veteran Chase Matthews of Dycusburg. The organizer of the Blackford services, who himself was injured in the Vietnam War, plans to attend the fund-raiser in Marion.
Funds raised from the benefit dinner for Matthews will go toward building the injured Iraq War veteran a home designed around his disabilities.
A former sergeant in the Kentucky Army National Guard, Mathews lost both legs and significant use of his left arm in a 2007 roadside bomb attack on the military transport he was driving in Iraq. Homes for Our Troops (HFOT), a national organization, has undertaken an effort to build Matthews and his family a new home in Eddyville designed specifically for his limitations.
Brent Witherspoon, organizer of the Blackford services, said spring rains, coupled with delays in preparation due to prolonged clean-up from January’s ice storm, have made a mess of the area where the service is held, particularly the parking lot.
“I hate to do it, because I love doing this,” Witherspoon said Friday. “I'd rather not get people over there and get them in a mess.”
The Memorial Day service was initially planned for Saturday at the Walk of Honor, an area dedicated to local veterans of all wars. Witherspoon said the spring rains that have already fallen just made it too risky to ensure adequate parking.
Instead, Witherspoon is encouraging usual visitors to the ceremony to attend a barbecue dinner Saturday scheduled as a benefit for injured Iraq War veteran Chase Matthews of Dycusburg. The organizer of the Blackford services, who himself was injured in the Vietnam War, plans to attend the fund-raiser in Marion.
Funds raised from the benefit dinner for Matthews will go toward building the injured Iraq War veteran a home designed around his disabilities.
A former sergeant in the Kentucky Army National Guard, Mathews lost both legs and significant use of his left arm in a 2007 roadside bomb attack on the military transport he was driving in Iraq. Homes for Our Troops (HFOT), a national organization, has undertaken an effort to build Matthews and his family a new home in Eddyville designed specifically for his limitations.
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