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The proposed Gold Star Memorial is moving forward on its original site in Jordans Point Park.
At the Lexington City Council’s meeting on June 15, City Manager Jim Halalsz informed Council that the fundraising for the memorial was complete and that plans were moving forward for the installation of the memorial by the pavilion in Jordans Point Park, which was the site proposed by Jaden Keuhner, a rising senior at Washington and Lee University who is heading the project.
The cost for the memorial is $60,000, more than half of which had been raised before Keuhner and his father David presented the proposal for the memorial to City Council in April.
The next step is pouring the 10,000-pound concrete base upon which the memorial will sit. The goal, Halasz informed Council, is to have the base poured “in the next couple months,” and to have the memorial finished in time for a dedication on Sept. 24, which is Gold Star Family Day.
Since that April Council meeting, the fundraising for the project was completed - in a record- breaking 89 days.
“It feels amazing, having so many people support this cause and something that means so much to me,” Jaden Keuhner told The News-Gazette last week.
In addition to asking Council to commit to a site for the memorial, the Keuhners asked that, if possible, the city’s public works department be utilized to help install the concrete base. Halasz told Council on June 15 that, while the city is attempting to coordinate that cooperation, it might not be possible due to “the tools that are involved and the skill involved when you’re dealing with a piece of concrete of that size. We may be able to work on that, we may not.”
In addition to the concrete base, the memorial will consist of four granite panels ranging between 3 and 6 feet in height. The front of each will be inscribed with one of the four pillars of the Wood Williams Foundation, the organization that helps find and install the memorials across the country: Homeland, Family, Patriot and Sacrifice.
Each panel will also contain an image to represent each pillar. The Homeland panel will include an image of the Rockbridge area, for example, while the Sacrifice panel will have an image of a flag-draped casket being carried by multiple service members. The message, “A tribute to Gold Star Families and relatives who sacrificed a loved one for our freedom” will be inscribed across the back of the four panels.
Council’s initial vote to provide a location for the memorial at its April 20 meeting was initially met with some criticism, primarily around the chosen location of the monument. Several citizens attended subsequent Council meetings to express support for the memorial in concept while proposing alternate sites within the city or asking Council to more carefully consider the potential impact of the memorial on the park.
At the request of a member of City Council, a scale mock-up of the memorial was installed on the proposed site in the park, which did draw some positive feedback from the community.
Mayor Frank Friedman, at Council’s June 1 meeting, read a letter from Mike and Mary Anne Gilmore, who had previously written to Council expressing disapproval of the proposed site, noting that the proposed site and size of the memorial was “prominent without interfering with the views and the green space of the park location. We find that most appropriate.”
