74 names of veterans were added to these two panels in late May on the War Memorial Wall at the Fremont County Airport
The names of another 74 veterans have been engraved on the wall at the War Memorial Park at the Fremont County Airport with preparations underway to dedicate those names in a ceremony over the Independence Day weekend. The engravings were completed just before the end of May and concluded what was a wait for some veterans and their families that extended for more than two years.
Fremont County Veterans Service Officer Al Augustine said the initial wait for some veterans came because the county needed a minimum of 50 names to place an engraving order with a vendor from Denver. Once that minimum order was reached at the close of 2014 the engraving order was placed. From spring through the fall of 2015 the vendor repeatedly encountered scheduling problems that were complicated by wet or windy weather.
Fremont County Commission Chairman Ed Norden said when it became obvious that the engraving would not be completed by the onset of winter, the Board of County Commissioners and the vendor in Denver mutually agreed to part ways. Arrangements were then made with Rocky Mountain Memorials in Colorado Springs to do the engraving at the earliest good weather opportunity this spring. Norden said the commissioners apologize to all the veterans and their families for the delay, adding that county officials were equally as frustrated throughout the process.
Augustine is now making arrangements to dedicate the newly added names to the War Memorial Wall at a ceremony scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 2nd. Details about the ceremony will be announced in the coming weeks.
Commissioner Norden said because the wall is quickly filling with names of veterans more work is planned this summer to make more bricks available. Norden said Panel A on the War Memorial Wall was originally intended for the listing of donors. He said brick work will be undertaken to list all donor bricks on the left side of Panel A and thus create another panel of blanks to engrave the names of more veterans.
Veterans or families interested in engraving a veteran’s name on the wall should contact Augustine at the Fremont County Veterans Service Office in the County Administration Building. There is a $50 cost for the engraving of each brick.