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Suggestion for a WR Journal tribute to Idaho war veterans

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The dozens of articles that Wood River Journal reporters have written about our armed service veterans over the past few years are greatly impressive. Last summer, I remember thinking, while reading key feature stories by Kelly Jackson and Karen Bossick what a grand thing it would be for our community, if the newspaper did a little something more with these in-depth articles.

Since the stories have already been written, the Journal could go back at limited expense and simply cobble together a magazine or small book about our veterans to present to each of the regional history department heads of our local libraries. Other places where such a book would be a good fit are the coffee tables of our senior center, local armory, American Legion, Blaine Manor, St. Lukes, the Sun Valley Lodge, Sun Valley Adaptive Sports vans, etc. Imagine how far those feelings of good will could go, if a Journal representative presented a copy of this book as a gift, during next years ceremonious ribbon-cutting at the new Senior Center.

Another way the Journal could keep our Veterans vast experiences alive is a link to these stories within a special button on their website. Again, as the stories are already written, and most already online within the database, it doesn’t seem that such a tribute would take more than several hours to organize and then link to as a Veteran’s feature archive.

If my estimate is off and the Journal management deems such a project to be too costly, my father –who is an American Legion Commander (back east) –reminds us that many American Legions and other veteran groups usually have strong-willed volunteers available to freely contribute and work in conjunction with local newspapers on such meaningful tasks.

Perhaps the time is too tight right now to get something like this running by this Memorial Day; however, if the Journal were to make an announcement for an intention for a soon enhanced tribute, this would please many veterans. Maybe the staff could plan to hand out copies of this special limited edition magazine to interested readers, during Hailey’s Fourth of July parade this summer.

I believe that such powerful articles deserve to be reprinted and featured in several prominent valley locations as respectful reminders to those, who have patriotically served our great country.

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