Fletcher gives background on Hometown Hero Banners
RIDGWAY - As the community may have noticed, Hometown Hero Banners have lined the downtown streets of Ridgway for over a year.
Just recently, 113 more Hometown Hero Banners were hung just before Memorial Day. Last May, the first 205 hometown hero banners were hung honoring veterans from Ridgway, and now 318 banners have been mounted over the past two years.
The process to bring these banners to honor our local veterans began a couple years ago, when Karen Lundin, a Ridgway resident and matriarch of The Christmas Day Happening, pushed Borough Council members at the time to have these banners displayed in town.
John Fletcher, who is Ridgway’s Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post Commander, was also instrumental in getting these hometown hero banners in town.
After going through several meetings with the Ridgway Heritage Council and the Ridgway Borough Council, 205 hometown hero banners were hung last May.
To get a Hometown Hero Banner, individuals have to submit an application to the Elk County Veterans’ Affairs office or the VFW, as applications are available in both places.
Hometown Hero Banners are designed to honor anyone in the military from the Revolutionary War up until the current global war on terrorism, according to Fletcher.
Now that we are coming upon Memorial Day, Fletcher takes great pride in having 318 banners hung from the Paul H. Speer Bridge to North Broad Street as well as along Front Street.
“It’s a great honor for everybody in the community to see what freedom actually costs,” Fletcher said. “Most of these guys who put these up are combat veterans so it means a lot to us to honor our brothers and sisters.” Fletcher is a military veteran.
Fletcher thanked the volunteers over the last two weekends to get these 113 banners up in town.
“Karen (Lundin) was a big part of this,” Fletcher said. He also credited Jim Wolff, Scott Rakieski, Mike Bonfardin, Scott Hollobaugh, and Al Laughlin for their time and efforts to make this possible.
Fletcher said that he is thinking of one or two more rounds of the hometown hero banners being placed, and then he will see how the situation goes from there.
He welcomes any families that have purchased banners to volunteer to take down banners after Veterans Day this November, or to put them back up next year.
These Hometown Hero Banners remind us of the countless sacrifices that our veterans from Ridgway made to keep our country safe.