HANCOCK COUNTY — Events honoring those who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces will take place across Hancock County Monday.
Greenfield
The Dale E. Kuhn American Legion Post 119 and Auxiliary Unit 119 will hold their 62nd Annual Memorial Day Ceremony at 11 a.m. at Park Cemetery, 621 S. State St., Greenfield.
Tom Pomeroy, post commander, will open the event. An invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance will follow. Greenfield Mayor Chuck Fewell, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, will be the ceremony’s guest speaker.
The event will also feature a presentation of wreaths. The Greenfield Veterans Honor Guard will conduct a rifle salute and raising of the flag. Bill Huffman will play “Taps,” and Steve Brackney, chaplain of the American Legion post, will give the benediction.
Flags will be passed out to those who wish to place them on veterans’ graves.
Volunteers raised more than 800 American flags at the cemetery last Saturday. Each one bears the name of a veteran from Hancock County who has passed away.
Fortville
American Legion Post 391 and VFW Post 6904 will hold a joint ceremony at 11 a.m. at Gravel Lawn Cemetery just north of Fortville at County Road 1025S and State Road 13.
Stephen Daniel, who will soon assume the role of the American Legion post’s adjutant, said the post commander and auxiliary leader will speak at the ceremony, which will also include a rifle salute and playing of “Taps.”
New Palestine
Officials with New Palestine American Legion Post 182 will hold a Memorial Day commemoration at Sugar Creek Township Park at the Southern Hancock Veterans Memorial. The park is at 4761 S. County Road 700W.
The event is set to start around 11:30 a.m. and last for about 30 minutes, said Tom Ayer, commander of Post 182.
The ceremony will begin with some patriotic music followed by the raising of the American flag. That will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, an invocation and then a reading of a poem — “In Flanders Field.” The poem was written by a Canadian physician, Lt. Col. John McCrea, in World War I.
Organizers also will present the Gettysburg Address with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as background music.
Ayer will then deliver his commander’s speech followed by the laying of the wreath on the Obelisk. They’ll then do a reading of the names of Southern Hancock Veterans who have died.
The ceremony will wrap up with a prayer, and a color guard rifle salute followed by a bugler playing “Taps.”
All county residents are invited to attend, Ayer said.
McCordsville
While McCordsville doesn’t have any Memorial Day ceremonies planned, members of the Exchange Club of Hancock County prepared the town’s cemetery for the holiday by placing flags around its perimeter and at veterans’ graves.
Three dozen veterans are buried in the cemetery, according to information Vernon Township Trustee Florence May provided: 27 from the Civil War; four from World War I; two from World War II; and three Korean War veterans.
Veterans’ grave sites were identified during the township’s extensive repairs of the McCordsville Cemetery over the past year by Stonehuggers, a professional cemetery restoration firm, May told the Daily Reporter in an email.
