Charles P. Peterson Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.)

In the beginning, just after Garland County Veterans Day activities in 2000, a group of folks got together at a local restaurant to hold their normal after-action discussion about how things went and what they could do better next year. The meeting was just breaking up when Bill Sexton noted that he had been back to his home state of Illinois and his county there had erected a memorial for veterans. He asked, “Why don’t we have one of those?” So, at that moment, the Garland County Veterans Memorial was born. All agreed to meet in January 2001 to discuss the possibility of a memorial.

About twenty people came to a January 16, 2001 meeting to discuss the issue, and they

decided that Garland County needed a memorial. Morris Cash volunteered to be the project chairman and would, from that moment on, spend the rest of his life making the Veterans Memorial a reality. He told the author that he felt God wanted him to do this, and we can certainly agree that Morris succeeded—in grand style.

Bill Sexton, Ken Johnson, and Richard Ennis, along with Morris Cash, held the first Veterans Memorial Committee officer positions, and ten members initially donated $100 each to start things off. This whopping $1,000 left them only a few hundred thousand dollars short of the final costs. (The later committee treasurer Fred Kelsay reported that the final costs were about $450,000 for the memorial, with a multitude of additional expenses for maintenance, cleaning, landscaping, and other needs.)

The main challenge now was going to be how to raise enough money, and State Senator Terry Smith really got the ball rolling by securing a $110,710 grant from the State of Arkansas, and Walmart donated $10,000. It took eighteen months for the Veterans Memorial Committee to become a 501c(3) corporation, and then the project was off and running.

Lots of people worked on raising money; however, after Tom Wilkins and Dick Antoine came on board as fund-raising co-chairmen, they started making things happen with their “Support Our Veterans Memorial: It Just Makes Cents” campaign. Numerous  organizations and businesses around town collected coins/pennies, and 200 five-gallon donation jugs (donated by Walmart) were placed around the city. Cutter Morning Star School District students alone raised almost $3,000 in coins. Diamond Bank let the project use their change machine to process the coins. The Hot Springs Sentinel-Record frequently promoted the memorial drive, and the Veterans Memorial Committee even produced TV advertisements to publicize the memorial, with assistance from Don Cassil. Nearly 27,000 spot promos were shown on cable TV. Also about this time (2005), Fred Kelsay and his wife Sharon volunteered to take over the treasurer’s job.

Money was also raised by the sale of bricks and pavers which would be inscribed with the names and service information of veterans. They came in $100, $500, and $1,000 sizes. The committee also offered engraved bronze plaques for $5,000, engraved granite panels for $10,000, and granite obelisks for $25,000.

Now that there was some money coming in, it was time to think about construction. Morris Cash (a former Air Force technical sergeant) had been an architectural draftsman, and he drew up the plans for the memorial. Morris was watching the History Channel one night and saw a documentary about ancient techniques for assembling granite stones and notching them together. He incorporated these techniques into his plans. (The construction company later said that his plans were some of the best they had seen.) Morris created an octagon design of an open-air structure twenty-four feet in diameter. Slabs of granite representing the five military service branches would serve as walls on five of the eight sides. The logo of each branch would be laser-etched into its eight-foot-high slab. A dark blue granite obelisk would anchor the design’s center. The memorial was originally slated to be built on Whittington Avenue near the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and 

the Arts. But, after seeing the master plan for the Hot Springs Creek Greenway near Transportation Plaza, Tom Wilkins and the committee decided that Transportation Plaza would be the perfect site. This move saved the committee about $50,000 that would have been spent at the Whittington site on “dirt work,” a parking lot, and lighting.

The winning construction bidders were Dick Holden of Hot Springs Monument Company and Butch Martin of Marco Construction Company. Dick Holden later said, “This is a labor of love with us. I can’t say that we are going to show a profit, but we’ll have a great gratification of knowing that we did produce a memorial that honors our veterans that have sacrificed so throughout the years to preserve our freedom.” Dick Holden and Butch Martin did their work at cost.

Construction began in late winter 2008 at Transportation Plaza at 118 Orange Street between Malvern Avenue and Broadway (just across from Farmers Market). The ninety percent concrete construction featured fifty-seven tons of the best quality red, white, blue, and black granite purchased from India by Dick Holden’s company. (After the completion and dedication of the memorial, one of the losing bidders for the construction contract noticed a hairline crack in a piece of granite, which had to be reordered; this led to many time-consuming problems, but the replacement granite was eventually installed.) A highlight of the Veterans Memorial are the bricks and pavers that recognize individuals who have served our country. As of Memorial Day, 2016, 1,614 men and women are memorialized in this way.

The memorial was dedicated on July 4, 2009, with Hot Springs native retired Sgt. Major of the Marine Corps Alford McMichael giving the keynote address to hundreds of residents and officials. By this time the memorial committee had involved twenty-eight members (see photograph for names) and no telling how many other volunteers, organizations, and companies who gave their time, money, and energy. Morris Cash told the crowd, “I want to thank you for standing out here and believing in what this committee has been trying to do for eight and a half years. You are the owners. When you contributed, you became a shareholder in this memorial. The committee, we’re just caretakers, and we are going to take care of it from now on, forever.”

Next came the expansion of the memorial area by acquiring a fifty -year lease of more land at Transportation Plaza and adding the words “Military Park”—the memorial would now be the Garland County Veterans Memorial and Military Park. This new area now includes an eight-foot tall, bronze Fallen Hero statue designed by artist Greg Marra. It represents all of our fallen heroes, but the model for the figure was Navy Seal Chief (SOC) Adam Brown, a Hot Springs native and Lake Hamilton School District graduate who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010. A ship’s propeller is nearby, and more space for possible additional displays is available.

This new addition, of course, had called for more money, and Dick Antoine and Tom Wilkins had gone back to work. They organized a fund-raiser held at First Baptist Church in October 2014, and Tom got entertainer Tony Orlando to be honorary chairman of the event. Orlando donated money as well as his services to the project. The event raised $67,000.

At the dedication of the Fallen Hero statue on December 7, 2014, a crowd of hundreds (including Adam Brown’s family) watched Navy Seals propel down from a National Guard Black Hawk helicopter. (US Senator Tom Cotton and US Representative Bruce Westerman had worked with the military to get approval for this tribute.)

The current committee chairman, Jo West Taylor, vice chairman Walt Thrasher, treasurer Jackie Davis, secretary Dick Holden, and nine other committee volunteers are working to maintain and improve the memorial site and planning for future additions and funding. The memorial continues to offer memorial bricks at $100 each and granite pavers at $500 or  $1,000. The committee website (wwwgcvets.us) has order forms for the bricks/pavers. According to Morris Cash, there is room for more than 2,000 additional bricks/pavers. The committee website provides a list of all veterans listed on the bricks/pavers; a High Valor list of Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, and Silver Star winners; a veterans’ registry, and other links.

A consistent theme throughout the entire history of the memorial is the overwhelming  number of people, organizations, and businesses that have donated their time, resources, and money to make the Garland County Veterans Memorial and Military Park happen. A few others include Bill Crone, who sold $75,000 of pavers/bricks; the Emblem Club, which cleaned the site; Roger Carter, who donated the archway of the five services; Bill Barnes, who donated the ship’s propeller; the Master Gardeners, who landscaped the area; the City of Hot Springs; the West Central Development and Planning District; and Fred Kelsay, his wife Sharon, and his son Ron, who were always there and involved. 

The list of those who made the memorial and the military park a reality is endless. Their actions confirm the old saying that it is amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit. And their attitude was expressed well at the memorial dedication in 2009 by Becky Antoine: “It’s a wonderful thing to have this in our community and an honor to honor the veterans who have helped us have a free country.”