BY KAREN BOSSICK
Supporters of a Veterans Memorial for Blaine County are asking for help from the community.
Higher Ground Sun Valley teamed up with the Blaine County commissioners, Webb Landscaping and Eggers Associates to design the memorial last summer. They had hoped to have it in place at the old county courthouse in Hailey by Veterans Day 2017 but ran into a funding snafu.
Now those involved are asking for donations from the community to help complete it. The campaign so far has raised about $5,000 of its $82,500 goal.
“This will allow residents to admire, reflect and honor our local vets past and present,” said Justin Safley, logistics coordinator for Higher Ground USA.
To make an online donation, go to https://www.gofundme.com/tributetoveterans. Or, write a check to Higher Ground Sun Valley, Inc., with the acronym BCVM designating what it’s to be used for, and send the check to Blaine County Veterans Memorial, care of Higher Ground Sun Valley, Inc., P.O. Box 6791, Ketchum, ID 83340.
Leaders of the Wood River Valley’s Veterans community broke ground on the Fourth of July for a Blaine County Veterans Memorial on the northwest corner of the Blaine County Courthouse lawn.
The memorial will include five benches decorated with emblems of the U.S. military branches, a small shallow pond, flags and several symbolic pieces, including a Civil War-era bugle and a steel pot World War I combat helmet.”
The monument was designed by Webb’s landscape designer Pedro Garcia, who obtained his American citizenship in July after 22 years living in Idaho.
“Being part of the memorial is cool,” said Garcia, who moved to the United States with his family from an impoverished village in Mexico. “There’s a lot of meaning to it. I took all the different ideas they had, the meanings they wanted conveyed. Then I incorporated different elements reflecting the area we live in such as water, native plants, river rocks. They represent things like strength and endurance and flexibility and adaptability.”