Garner tourney to help fund memorial

GARNER -- Two Garner teens plan to raise money for a veterans' memorial in town.

Zelle Brown, Miss Garner 2011, and Lauren Hitchings, Garner's Outstanding Teen, are seeking sponsors and players for a golf tournament April 27 at River Ridge Golf Club.

"We hope to raise $10,000 from the tournament," Brown told Garner Town Council last week.

Harold Garner, executive director of the Miss Garner Pageant, said the girls decided to join fundraising efforts for the memorial after attending the local Veterans Day ceremony last year.

"This is the very first time I can remember that Miss Garner has gone out in the community to raise money for anything other than her own platform," Garner said. "Three or four teams have already expressed interest in joining."

The money will help build a veterans' memorial that has been in the works since 2008.

The Garner Veterans Memorial Committee last year completed plans for a monument at Lake Benson Park on Buffalo Road. The memorial will have granite pillars representing each decade since the Civil War, said Harold Annis, the committee's president. Each pillar would list the conflicts in which America fought during that decade.

A place that teaches

"It will be a very interactive memorial," Annis said. "We want classrooms and parents with their kids to go there so they can remember sacrifices and learn about our history."

The monument will take up about 6,000 square feet and cost about $500,000.

"Our goal is to have the money secure and break ground in November of this year," Annis said. "If we don't do it now, then when?"

Annis did not say how his committee planned to raise the money, but both Annis and Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams said the project was a high priority because some 3,000 veterans living in Garner are going without proper recognition.

Some citizens, Williams said, want a memorial as soon as possible because they worry that Garner's oldest veterans might never see one.

"This monument will provide a sense of community and show the world how much we appreciate and would like to honor our veterans," Williams said. "We will not settle for a token memorial."