Ribbon-cutting opens Veterans Walk of Honor

Photo by George L. Winship, Editor

Anderson City Councilman James Yarbrough, 63, proudly shows visitors the Veterans Walk of Honor memorial park Sunday, Dec. 18, after it opened in Anderson. The nearly $500,000 memorial park was built based on a dream of Yarbrough's some two years prior.

The 200 chairs under a large, white tent filled well before 3 p.m., start of a program to dedicate and open the Anderson Veterans Walk of Honor on Sunday, Dec. 18.

City Councilman James Yarbrough, who had dreamed of the memorial park honoring all veterans from all branches of service and all conflicts, emceed the nearly hour-long event held in downtown Anderson that attracted at least the 500 onlookers anticipated by city officials.

Following a presentation of the U.S. and California flags by the California National Guard, Yarbrough’s grandson — U.S. Air Force Airman First Class Jordan Yarbrough — led the gathering in the Pledge of Allegiance.

During a prayer of dedication, Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh, whose District 5 includes Anderson, asked that the park “be a beacon of light offering hope, dignity and honor” before presenting councilman Yarbrough with a proclamation signed by all five members of the county’s board of supervisors.

“Wow. If I don’t start crying, it will be a miracle,” said Yarbrough, who also happened to be celebrating his 63rd birthday Sunday.

During his prepared remarks about the memorial park that completely transformed a run-down and long-neglected vacant lot in the city’s showcase redevelopment area along East Center Street, Yarbrough read a short letter to all veterans written by Dylan Cardwell, 11, a student in Ruth Copeland’s fifth-grade classroom at Meadow Lane School in Anderson.

“Dear Soldier, Thank you for everything. For freedom, liberty and the time you sacrificed from your loved ones. I hope that you have a long, prideful life and that you have a long, happy life and people respect you. You’re an awesome, selfless person and thank you for saving freedom, protecting us and making it possible for us to even be here today. You’re truly a selfless, prideful, awesome person who should never be disrespected. Sincerely, Dylan.”

Assistant City Manager Jeff Kiser, who also is the city’s director of public works, complimented Yarbrough on the quality of his vision, as well as the work of landscape architect Michael Lander, who “took what he heard in words and turned it into what you see here today.”

Funding for the nearly $500,000 memorial park project was the result of a partnership between the city and a grass-roots committee that raised nearly $300,000 from private and corporate donors.

Prior to the committee members and other city dignitaries cutting a red, white and blue ribbon that stretched across one of two gates leading into the half-block long memorial park, Yarbrough took time out to say, “I am thankful for the community that allowed a dream to become a reality. This is a memorial for which we are all so proud.”

Afterwards, many in the crowd entered the memorial park to witness the raising of a U.S., California and MIA/POW flags as well as the unveiling of more than 293 bronze-like plaques honoring veterans from conflicts dating to the Civil War.

City Manager Dana Shigley, who steps down Tuesday to take a similar job in the City of American Canyon near Vallejo, purchased two $100 plaques — one honoring her father, Gerald Robert Tong, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps honorably discharged in 1965, and another for a more distant relative, Robert James Tong, who fought for the North during the Civil War and was briefly taken prisoner by Southern forces prior to his release and honorable discharge from the Union Army in 1865.

“It was an interesting tidbit of family lore that my father and our more distant relative were discharged 100 years apart,” Shigley said.

The memorial park, Shigley said, “will bring people here to Anderson and give the city an identity. It is so special that this will always be an Anderson icon.”

Asked what the memorial park means to her, long-time Anderson volunteer extraordinaire Corky Keenan, owner of a swimming pool service company that bears her last name, said, “It means so much hard work and many dreams have been realized. It is such a proud moment for Anderson. My compliments to James Yarbrough. This whole thing is a phenomenal project that finally came true.”

For more than an hour after the ceremony ended, dozens of attendees continued to explore the park, check out the many names engraved on the park’s Wall of Honor and pose for photographs with Yarbrough or other members of their own families.