Services honor local vets

By Cheryl Johnson, Clarendon Enterprise

Several organizations in Donley County have slated services and programs to honor area veterans for Veterans’ Day.

On Thursday, November 11, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the US Memorial Post 7782 of Clarendon will hold memorial services at the Donley County War Memorial at 10 a.m. Although this is a private service, the public is invited and encouraged to attend. 

The Adamson-Lane American Legion Post will hold their annual Veterans’ Day program at 11:00 a.m. at the Rowe Cemetery in Hedley.  Johnny Hoggatt will be the featured speaker for the ceremony.

Hoggatt is a 1996 graduate of Hedley High School.  He joined the US Marine Corps after graduation and attended boot camp in San Diego, California.  He attended the USMC Combat Engineer School at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina.  He was then shipped to Okinawa, Japan, with the 3rd Marine Division Combat Assault Battalion.  He has been deployed to Lithuania for Operation Baltic Castle and to Kabule, Afghanistan, during Operation Enduring Freedom to re-open the US Embassy there.  He was deployed in February 2003 for Operation Iraq Freedom and the Iraq and Kuwait War.

Hoggatt was released from the US Marine Corps in January 2004 as a Staff Sargent.  He and his wife Jana and their two children live in Amarillo where he is currently employed as a security police officer at the Pantex Plant.

The Post will place flags on the 200 graves of veterans buried in Rowe Cemetery.  The VFW Post will also place flags on the graves of veterans buried in Citizens Cemetery.

The students at Hedley School will hold a special program for the veterans beginning at noon. Veterans will enjoy a meal at the school cafeteria – (invited guests only, please). 

Finally the day will end up at the VFW Hall in Clarendon at around 2 p.m. where all Donley County veterans will be treated to a free picnic sponsored by the VFW Post, their Ladies Auxiliary, American Legion Post 287, and the Friends of the Donley County Veterans.

Although the Veterans’ meals are free, the VFW is asking for donations for the spouses, dependents, and guests.

VFW Post 7782 would also like to remind all veterans that Golden Corral in Amarillo will be giving away free meals on Monday, November 15, for all US Military veterans.

Also being held on Thursday in Amarillo, the newly completed Visitors Reflection Center will be dedicated at 11:00 a.m. at the War Memorial located at Veterans Park, next to the Randall County Annex on Georgia Street and I-27. The public is invited to the ceremony.

The center is to be available to veterans, their families, and to all visitors to come and reflect upon what they have seen at the memorial itself.  It will also have a place for visitors to sign in and an exhibit area for war memorials.

The War Memorial consists of red granite monoliths, which give a brief history of all United States conflicts from the Spanish American War through Desert Storm.  Afghanistan and Iraq will soon be added.  Other monoliths are inscribed with the names of the 1,000 dead and missing in action from casualties from World War I through Desert Storm from the upper twenty-six counties of the Texas Panhandle.

The names of 54 casualties from Donley County are inscribed on the Monoliths.  There are fifteen names from World War I, twenty-six names from World War II, one from the Korean War, and two from the Vietnam War.

A color guard from the Marine Reserves will open the dedication ceremony, followed by a bugle solo of “The Star Spangled Banner” played by John Brewer. The invocation will be given by the Rev. James Garrett of Polk Street United Methodist Church.  The Stars Choir from the church will sing a patriotic song medley.

Senator Kel Seliger will be the featured speaker.

The ceremony will end with a twenty-on gun salute by the Texas State Troopers Honor Guard from Lubbock, followed by “Taps” played on the bugle by John Brewer.