May 29, 2002 By Ted Boscia 4 min read

MENALLEN TWP. – A group with an interest in reviving Keisterville’s military honor roll is soliciting the names of veterans who entered the service as residents of the community. The six-person Keisterville Honor Roll Fund Committee, chaired by Lois Smoley, wishes to recognize veterans of all wars and non-combat service by building a replacement for the town’s long-neglected honor roll.

Smoley said the committee wants to ensure that all eligible names are included on the updated register.

“The committee is searching for any veteran that entered the military and at the time was a resident of Keisterville,” Smoley said. “People who now live here but entered while living somewhere else are not eligible.”

She said the idea developed as an offshoot of the community’s second Keisterville reunion, scheduled for the last week in June 2003. The theme for next year’s event will be “Honoring Keisterville’s Veterans,” which is a follow-up to the 2000 gathering that remembered the town’s coal miners.

According to Smoley, the committee’s thrust is twofold: compiling the names for the honor roll and seeking donations for the estimated $18,000 replacement.

With the group able to collect about $5,000 since February, she said the true challenge for the project has been securing the veterans’ names.

“We’re trying to advertise as much as possible that we want all the names,” Smoley said. “Because of the Rights and Privacy Act, I cannot get a list without each person’s signed permission. Obviously, if we had permission slips from these veterans, we wouldn’t need that list.”

To obtain names, Smoley said, the committee has advertised via word of mouth, sent letters to veterans and posted notices around the community. She said it is crucial to have the names before the register is built because the committee cannot add them once the monument is unveiled at the reunion.

“We’re really interested in finding out the names of people we would have otherwise missed,” she said. “I don’t want someone coming up to me at the reunion and saying, ‘Hey, you missed my dad.’ Once it’s done, there’s no way we can add them.”

To date, the group has acquired 300 names, primarily from photographs of the old register, which was established by citizens of Keisterville, Waltersburg and Upper Middletown.

Smoley said the group has about 210 names from World War I and World War II, 50 from the Korean War, 20 from the Vietnam War and one from the current war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

“I’m mainly concerned about missing anyone from the Korean or Vietnam War,” she said. “I feel pretty confident about World War I and II. There was a 40-year span when I was away from Keisterville, and I didn’t get to know the Vietnam-era people.”

The 6-foot-wide and 5-foot-high brick structure will be similar to the original honor roll, which was built in 1945 to recognize World War II veterans and placed outside the Keisterville Schoolhouse. However, bronze plaques honoring all military veterans will flank the center section for World War II veterans. The group intends to place the updated register in the courtyard parking area of the Keisterville Union Church.

Smoley hopes to install a flagpole and lights at the site of the new memorial and convert the area into a small park.

As part of the fund-raising efforts, commemorative bricks that come with an honorary certificate are available for $10 apiece. Smoley said those sales have raised nearly $4,000 already.

“I think it’s a really neat idea to have the buy-a-brick campaign,” she said. “We’ve found that most people are buying the bricks just to have the certificate.”

The group also has contacted state Rep. Jim Shaner (D-Dunbar) for assistance in obtaining state funding for the project.

Smoley urged anyone with information about Keisterville veterans or who wishes to donate to the project to call her at 724-430-9821.