Students recognize local war veterans

Details

Published on Friday, October 2, 2015

Photo by John Drinkwater. From left: Kaleb Kramer, Alan Warkentin (Gladstone Elementary School principal), Weston Harder, Skylar DeJaegher, Catherine Smith, Jenna McBride, James Lobban, Collin Peters and Alan Patterson (brother to Catherine Smith)

By John Drinkwater

The Neepawa Banner

On Sept. 24, principal Alan Warkentin and students from Gladstone Elementary school attended the local cemetery as part of the Legion's Veterans Week.

Here, they recognized the grave sites of war veterans by placing crosses near the headstones.

Former Gladstone mayor (1998-2006) Catherine Smith, the daughter of a WWI veteran, supervised the event while assisted by the chaplain of Gladstone Legion #110. Smith said, “My father, who died in 1985, came back from the war to farm. There were 13 in the family with eight still living, the youngest being 68 years. Veteran names were extracted from community history books and grave locations marked on maps. The Legion Ladies Auxiliary (now disbanded) has assisted in this in years past. Similar events took place earlier, with six students in Austin and 15 in MacGregor. Over 200 crosses were placed at the Gladstone site.”  

The students enjoyed being involved and were particularly impressed by war memorabilia shown by Smith. Nick Bevington, president of the Gladstone Legion, said a total of 500 crosses were placed that day, a portion of these at Beaver and Katrime grave sites.