By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A seven year journey for the Reno County Veterans' Memorial saw a major achievement Thursday, as the granite panels began to be hung on the Memorial site in South Hutchinson.
"Probably the most exciting point was when we ordered the granite," said Kelly Danyluk, board president. "It took us several months to get. Then it took us several more months to get it engraved once it came in. To top it all off, today is absolutely amazing, to finally be here."
The actual hanging of the panels should be done by the end of the day Friday, if the weather stays as nice as it was Thursday. There is still trim work to be done. The cost of the memorial thus far has been about $400,000.
Erwin Leeper was on the South Hutchinson City Council at the time that KDOT redid the highway.
"We negotiated with KDOT for these access roads," Leeper said. "They purchased this much land and what they didn't use for the road, they dedicated to us."
Then the Veterans Memorial was brought up as an idea for the space that the city was originally thinking would be a park and Market South Hutch started working on the idea.
"There's two different companies here," Danyluk said. "Stainless Systems and then LeDuc Memorial out of Concordia."
Approximately 14,000 names of veterans who were either born in Reno County or lived there for at least 10 years are on the original panels for the memorial, but there are additional panels for later veterans or in case there are any omissions or spelling errors.