VETERANS INSIST AVENUE OF FLAGS STAYS IN PARK

JACKSON, Mo. -- A new Avenue of Flags needs to be included in any plan to relocate the war memorial to make room for a nature center in Cape Girardeau County Park North, veterans told project architects on Tuesday.

About 15 people attended a meeting in the County Administrative Building, including all three members of the County Commission. The meeting adjourned to the park where representatives of veterans groups and the architects viewed the memorial and looked at the proposed relocation site.

The Missouri Conservation Department plans to build the nature center in the park near the entrance road, which is close to the war memorial.

Peckham and Wright Architects of Columbia is designing the $6.5 million project, which includes a nature center, hiking trails, a children's play area and parking.

Architects have proposed closing the park entrance, moving the war memorial to a ridge west of the park's main lake and building a new entrance road from Highway 61. The new road would be to the west of the park's small lake.

Closing the entrance road and moving the war memorial would eliminate the Avenue of Flags in which American flags line the entrance area during Veterans Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Charlie Thrower of the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Cape Girardeau said any new entrance to the park should include post holders to allow for an Avenue of Flags.

Some 80 flags also would be set out around the relocated memorial during the patriotic holidays as is currently done at the memorial site, Thrower and other veterans said.

It has been suggested that a field of flags could be planted on the hillside near the proposed relocation site for the memorial. But Thrower said he and others in the VFW prefer to have an Avenue of Flags.

The holiday display could eventually include the erection of American flags around the park's large lake, veterans said.

But Thrower said limited manpower restricts how many flags are flown during the holidays. The VFW erects the flag display with help from the county park department. The Boy Scouts also lend a hand on occasion.

Bruce Watkins, park superintendent, said there is often only a handful of people on hand to erect and remove the flags. "There is just no help to put them out," he said.

Thrower said there are about 500 flags, but only half are displayed at one time. Each flag is in memory of a deceased Cape Girardeau County veteran.

Fueled by an aging veteran population, that number continues to climb, veterans said.

Thrower said about a dozen flags a year are added to the display. "Right now we have two trailer loads of flags," he said.

Thrower and other veterans said the Avenue of Flags is a big attraction during Veterans Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Architects said relocating the memorial could provide the war monument with added space for parking. New walkways could be built, and a wall could be constructed as a backdrop for the memorial. The relocation also would involve some landscaping, architect Erik Miller said.

The war memorial, dedicated in 1982, is a textured concrete octagon 4 feet high and 32 feet across. In the center is an 85-foot-tall pole bearing the American flag.

Veterans groups and other organizations paid for the memorial. Also in the area is a monument to Pfc. Richard Wilson, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient from Cape Girardeau, and a police memorial from the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 33.

The memorial and the two monuments would be relocated to the west side of the park under the proposal put forth by the architects.

County Commissioner Max Stovall said the memorial may be difficult to move from its foundation. Miller said it may be less expensive to rebuild it.

The architects plan to develop some design alternatives for the new memorial site and then review those plans with county officials and representatives of veterans groups.