Watauga Veterans Memorial set for Fourth of July unveiling
The Watauga DemocratJun 28, 2018
BOONE - After two and a half years of planning, development and fundraising, the Watauga County Veterans Memorial is set to be unveiled at
"It's extremely gratifying to see the community involvement when people realized we were legitimate," said Lt. Col. (Ret.)
The project, which started as the idea of the High Country MOAA, is now located at
"I think all veterans are going to be pleased and honored by what we have done," Brudzinski said. "It is a great feeling, knowing that Watauga didn't have a memorial in a highly visible location before. You couldn't ask for a better location."
The construction process has been ongoing for three months. The memorial was built offsite at Clemens Welding and Machine Shop on
According to Brudzinski, the logistics of the unveiling are going to be tough as
Brudzinski also said there will be a surprise or two, but wouldn't offer any hints as to what they could be.
The memorial's centerpiece is an eight-foot ellipse with five directional pillars representing the five different service branches: Army,
Three knee walls with sloping faces will surround the ellipse. One honors those from Watauga County who served and died in the seven major American conflicts: the American Revolution, War of 1812, American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The second will honor those in current and potential future conflicts and the third, located behind the ellipse, will honor those who donated to the project.
The location of the memorial at
As fundraising efforts continued, a competition was opened for memorial designs in late 2016. A total of 19 designs were reviewed, which were narrowed down to three and then on
"This ellipse is, in my mind, talking to us about time," Hallier said on
The committee of six who made the final decision were
"We felt that ellipse fit in with Boone," Brudzinski explained. "It fell right in to what we wanted to convey."