Veterans’ memorial moving ahead

BUCYRUS – Since 2007, the Crawford County Veterans Hall of Fame has been honoring those who served in the military with an annual ceremony at an obelisk in the Bucyrus City Building. That was just a start.

The organization has firm plans to increase the visibility of its inductees with a granite memorial to be placed outside the southeast side of the Crawford County Courthouse. It will continue to update the monument in the City Building, but the courthouse project is what the veterans’ group has been working toward for seven years now.

“It’s going to look neat. We’re the only county in the state that does an operation like this. There’s two other counties that do a hall of fame, but they don’t do a ceremony or have an outside monument,” Chuck Christman, president of the Hall of Fame, said.

“I know a lot of people at the state veterans hall of fame in Columbus, and they would like every county to do it. They’re very excited about the idea. We’re like the cutting edge here.”

The memorial will not be cheap, however. Consisting of a pillar in the center surrounded by five wings, with several paving stones encircling the area, it’s expected to cost anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000, with the granite taking up the lion’s share of that cost at $60,000. The landscaping will cost about $20,000, with lighting accounting for the rest.

The Hall of Fame has started selling paving stones to raise money for the project. It’s also reaching out to community businesses for donations and is looking for grants.

“We’ve got some money in the kitty now. Not a lot!” Christman said.

Anyone can purchase a granite paving stone to honor a veteran, with costs ranging from $100 for a brick eight inches by four inches to $700 for one that’s 20 inches by 20 inches.

The Crawford County Veterans Hall of Fame can be reached through Christman, at 419-562-4740 and cchristman@earthlink.net, via its website at www.crawfordcountyveteranshof.org, or by regular mail at Post Office Box 324, Bucyrus, Ohio 44820. Every veterans group in the county also has forms on hand to purchase a paving stone, Christman said.

“I think it’s so neat that somebody can go back and honor somebody in their family for a very minimal price and have it just about last forever,” Donald Scheerer, Hall of Fame secretary, said.

“We’ve been a little aggressive. We probably should have reined in our horses and thought about it a little bit more. But it will happen,” Christman said.

“Once you get started you’ve just got to keep pushing,” Scheerer said.

Local contractors have signed on for the courthouse project, with Longstreth Memorials providing the granite and Oberlander’s Tree and Landscape doing the landscaping work. And although ground has yet to be broken on the new memorial, a lot of work on the part of the Hall of Fame already has gone into it.

“For Donny and I, it’s a full-time job. It’s a good thing we’re retired. It does take a lot of work. It’s been a learning process, and I’ve made my share of mistakes,” Christman said.

“We get one thing taken care of, and they say, you know, you have to have this and this. We went up to see about a building permit, and they said we have to have an architect’s drawing,” Scheerer said.

While anybody wishing to honor a veteran can purchase a paving stone at the new memorial, the Hall of Fame also is actively looking for new inductees, with candidates evaluated for both their service in the military, going back to World War II, as well as their service in the community afterward.

And although the new memorial may still be far from a done deal at this point, the organization already has its eyes on future projects.

“One of the county commissioners took me aside and asked me if I could come up with all the names of Crawford County veterans that were killed in the line of duty. We should be able to go back to the Mexican War (1846-48),” Scheerer said.

“This town was so German back during World War I. I would hate to be the speaker who had to pronounce some of those names.”

thill3@nncogannett.com

419-563-9225

Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ