This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the November 4, 2010 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            This week our minds are still on the special Veteran’s salute scheduled for 9 a.m. on November 9^th at North Magoffin School and at 1 p.m. on that day at South Magoffin School.  Then on Wednesday, November 10^th a program will be held at the Herald Whitaker Middle School at 9 a.m., and at 1 p.m. at the Salyersville Grade School with the culminating program to be on November 11^th, Veteran’s Day at 11 a.m. at the Magoffin County High School gym.

            We have added some names to our list of surviving veterans of World War II.  They are Albert K. Moore’s daughter Jean Moore Prather as well as Cooper Lyons and Farmer Holliday.  We hope you will be able to tell us about others.

            We have celebrated this Sesquicentennial year in Magoffin County with many special events throughout the year.  In fact, I have seen more celebrating than at any other time in this writer’s lifetime, including the 1960 Centennial celebration in which I took an active part.  During the Centennial we celebrated for one week around the 4^th of July and this year we have had many events all year long with more to come.

            The Sesquicentennial Committee eagerly wants to help in any way and especially give a token of respect for all World War II veterans and all other veterans who will assemble during these special occasions and plans are to build on this and do special honors for the Korean veterans next year and the Vietnam veterans the following year.  But I do want to repeat that the welcome mat goes out to ALL veterans this year.

            We here at the historical society have pored over all our records, books, etc. to get a clearer picture and number of our veterans.  We have in print two volumes of military news excerpts from the Salyersville Independent of the World War II era.  These books, prepared for us by Betty Whittaker of SC contain news items, copies of letters, pictures, etc.  We also have printed three volumes of our Salute to Veterans series which began during Founders Days 2006.  The fourth, fifth and sixth volumes are well on the way and only need some “polishing up” to be ready for print.  Even with all this material at hand, we still can’t give anywhere near accurate figures of the number of Magoffin County men and women who were in the service of our country or how many are still alive today.  Neither can we come up with a complete casualty or missing in action list as it seems that new information comes in constantly that alters the numbers we have.

            The lists we have seen have the names listed thusly: KIA (killed in action); DOW (died of wounds); DOI (died of injuries); DNB (died non battle).  Some of the saddest stories are of the families who never received the remains of their fallen hero who may have been buried at sea or on foreign soil and has no monument or plaque.

            A few years ago there was a person or persons who stooped so low as to steal the brass markers off our fallen veteran’s graves.  Hopefully this has been squelched and will never happen again.  We have photographed about 300 or more such markers and most are shown in the back of our Volume 2 Military Excerpts book.  We are continuing to add to this picture collection and request that you send in pictures of your soldier’s gravesite with information as to the location and other biographical info.

            Now back to this Veteran’s Day celebration, we have been invited to a reception to begin at the entrance of the High School Road with fire truck greeters and a giant “Old Glory” flying from two ladder trucks and we expect the Magoffin County High School band will participate. 

            Again, we want to urge you to aid our veterans in participating in this ceremony.  Remember that some of our veterans are now in their nineties and may need your help in attending this program. 

            We are all enthusiastic about this Veterans Day ceremony and know that it will pave the way for next year when the salute to veterans will be continued.