Shelley unveiling new monument honoring veterans and first responders
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SHELLEY — The city of Shelley is celebrating the completion of a new monument honoring veterans and first responders.
The 6-foot by 16-foot brick structure is in front of the post office at 244 West Pine Street. It includes a list of just under 1,000 people from Shelley who are or have been military service members, law enforcement or firefighters. Three benches in front of the monument are part of it. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held Saturday at 1 p.m.
Plaques for Heroes, a local nonprofit that provides plaques for veterans, spearheaded the project. It got underway 14 months ago. About $25,000 in money, labor and materials were donated for it.
Michael Frost, the organization’s founder, tells EastIdahoNews.com he’s thrilled with how it turned out.
“It’s a lot more than I envisioned. I had it drawn on a scratch piece of paper to show what I wanted, but to actually see it in real life is overwhelming,” Frost says.
The new monument replaces the original, which was there for decades. Frost says the original monument, which was a small plaque on a brick framework, was destroyed when a car hit it about two months before work on the new monument began.
Frost says the postmaster initiated the conversation about building a new monument. Frost and his wife, Kim, later volunteered to be in charge of making it happen.
Dozens of businesses and community members were involved in its construction.
It was Frost’s idea to make this monument bigger and better than the original.
“I said, ‘Let’s go a step further.’ We started collecting names (of veterans and first responders to put on the monument). I only expected a couple hundred names, but it just kept going. We realized that this little area is a lot bigger than we think,” says Frost.
Among the names listed on the monument is Scott Thorne, a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Iraq war. He received the Purple Heart for gunshot wounds to the head in 2004 that affected his brain.
His injuries severely impacted his speech and he’s had to relearn many basic skills.
Twenty years later, Thorne is now legally blind and has no feeling on the right side of his body. Frequent seizures are a longterm side effect of his injuries.
Despite his struggles, Thorne says it was an honor to serve his country, and he’d do it again if he could.
When asked about his name being listed on the new monument, Thorne replied, “It doesn’t make me mad or anything.”
He’s proud that his name is near his therapist, Rex Thornley, who served in Iraq around the same time.
Having a monument that recognizes veterans and first responders adds value to the community, Frost says, and he’s glad to know that it will stand for future generations to see.
After more than a year of work on the monument, Frost is excited to officially unveil it to the community this weekend.
“I’m very proud of how it turned out,” he says.
