Fallen area officers honored at memorial ceremony

The annual Law Enforcement Memorial Ceremony, sponsored by Seniors and Lawmen Together, or SALT, was held Friday morning in the auditorium of the Conservation Campus Nature Center at Cape County Park North to honor 19 fallen officers from Southeast Missouri.

The service was held in conjunction with National Police Week and National Peace Officers Memorial Day, which was May 15. The 19 officers honored were from nine law enforcement agencies and had died between 1875 and 2005. C. Dewayne Graham Jr., who died March 20, 2005, and John "Jay" Sampietro Jr., who died Aug. 17, 2005, both of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, were the two most recent officers to be remembered at the service.

During the ceremony, Capt. Roger Fields read the names of the fallen officers individually over a simulated police radio. A fellow officer walked forward in the auditorium to present a white flower to any family members present. If no relatives were present, the officer placed the flower into a vase on the stage of the auditorium in front of the message "It is not how these officers died that made them heroes, but how they lived" projected onto a screen.

The program included remarks from Jackson police chief James Humphreys, whose great-uncle, Charles "Paul" Corbin of the highway patrol, died Sept. 15, 1943, and was honored Friday.

"To my fellow comrades, I suggest that we may best honor them and their memory by following their examples," Humphreys said in prepared remarks. "I would further suggest to you that honor, in the sense of living an honorable life, is the same as living a loving life ... But we also must remember, as it says in John 15:13: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'"

Four young members at the service also participated with poetry and music. Jessica Mann, 16, read the poem "Final Inspection," whose author is anonymous. Blake Fields, 16, his brother, Kyle Fields, 13, and Taylor Kight played "All I Think About Is You" on guitar. Kyle said their modified rendition was based on the song "Landing in London" by the group 3 Doors Down.

The service concluded when Sam Roethemeyer read the closing benediction and Narvol Randol Jr. played taps outside the auditorium.