The 7th Annual Anderson County Veterans Day Parade will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 11, in downtown Clinton.
This year’s theme is “Showing Our County’s Veterans We Care.â€
The parade will start on Market Street in Clinton and move toward Main Street, passing in front of the Anderson County Courthouse.
Immediately after the parade, there will be a ceremony celebrating veterans featuring a “mini-concert†by local favorites Russ and Becky Jeffers in the Ritz Theater. [Read more…]
Steve McDonald of Calvary Baptist Church introduces a new “In God We Trust” sign on the side of the Anderson County General Sessions Division II Courthouse in Oak Ridge.
A sign inscribed with the national motto “In God We Trust†was unveiled on the side of a Anderson County courthouse in Oak Ridge on Friday.
It’s the fifth “In God We Trust†sign to be posted on a county courthouse since July in a citizen-led initiative that has prompted a debate over the proper separation of church and state.
Also celebrated during a lunchtime ceremony Friday were a flagpole and memorial to five Anderson County veterans killed in the past decade in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Read more…]
Joyce Ward, mother of Staff Sgt. Christopher M. Ward, who died in Afghanistan on April 6, and Leon Jaquet, Anderson County veterans service officer, unveil a new plaque honoring Ward at the Veterans Memorial at the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton on Monday.
CLINTON—He had volunteered to replace another soldier on his last tour, and he paid with his life.
Christopher Michael Ward, 24, died in southern Afghanistan on April 6, the victim of a suicide car bombing. The explosion also killed two other soldiers, a U.S. diplomat, and a Department of Defense civilian. They had been delivering donated books to children in Zabul province.
On Monday, Ward was honored when his name was added to the Veterans Memorial at the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton during a Memorial Day ceremony.
“It’s very heartwarming,” said his mother Joyce Ward of Oak Ridge, who is moving to Hinesville, Ga., on Tuesday. “His death was not in vain.” [Read more…]
The flags at the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton have been lowered to half-staff and will remain so through sunset Saturday in honor and memory of the victims of Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, a press release said.
Anderson County Veterans Service Officer Leon Jaquet lowered the flags late Tuesday morning after receiving notification from the Office of President Barack Obama, who issued a presidential proclamation ordering the lowering of U.S. flags at all public buildings and grounds as a mark of respect for the victims.
“Such acts of evil are always difficult to understand,†Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said. “My prayers are with the victims, their families and those who so bravely responded to help.â€
Information from WYSH Radio
On Monday morning, Anderson County Veterans Service Officer Leon Jaquet and other officials gathered in his office in the Courthouse to present a long-overdue Purple Heart to the widow of a soldier wounded during World War II.
Former U.S. Army rifleman Louis Allison was wounded in Germany in early 1945 but never received his Purple Heart. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 80. [Read more…]
Entries for Anderson County’s sixth annual Veterans Day Parade are due by Friday.
The parade will be at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, in downtown Clinton. There will be a celebration of veterans in the Ritz Theater afterward.
The parade is organized by Anderson County Veteran Services Director Leon Jaquet, Clinton American Legion Post #172, Sons of the Revolution-Anderson County Chapter, and Anderson County Chamber of Commerce.
Entries are due by 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9. There is no entry fee, but donations will be accepted and used for advertising and renting the Ritz Theater.
There is a two-vehicle limit for motorized parade entries, although that limit doesn’t apply to military or emergency vehicles.
Call Jaquet at (865) 463-6803 or Lynn Fox at (865) 719-9947 for more information or a registration application.
More information on the parade and rules are available here.
The number of veterans helped by the county has grown by 25-30 percent each year during the five-year tenure of Anderson County Veterans Service Officer Leon Jaquet, Mayor Terry Frank announced.
The federal benefits paid to those same veterans has increased at nearly the same rate, Frank said in a press release marking Jaquet’s five-year anniversary. By 2011, the benefits paid to veterans and widows from Anderson County was about $8 million per year, Frank said.
