Veterans groups cut back Memorial Day cemetery tour schedule

A Memorial Day tradition in Jackson County — a joint tour of Jackson County’s cemeteries by two veterans’ organizations in Holton — is being cut back this year due to declining membership in both groups, according to Pat Fontaine, commanding officer of Mary L. Bair American Legion Post 44 in Holton.

The cemetery tour will still go on this year, Fontaine said, but it will be a single tour conducted jointly by the Legion post and Holton’s Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 1367. Representatives of the two posts will conclude their tour in Holton, where visits to the Holton Cemetery, Linscott Park and the Bernie Deghand Fallen Soldier Memorial on Holton’s Town Square have wrapped up the Memorial Day tour in years past.

“While in the past, we (Legion and VFW) were able to field two separate ceremonial parties, in recent years our numbers have dropped to where neither post is able to operate independently,” Fontaine said. “We have jointly decided to combine our members and do what we can in a somewhat scaled-back effort. We regret having to do this, but we no longer have the numbers.”

Fontaine attributed declining memberships in the two posts to the deaths of older veterans, noting that 18 area veterans have died since last Memorial Day, as well as younger veterans not joining the posts despite recruiting efforts.

The change will not affect Memorial Day activities at cemeteries in southern Jackson County, which is serviced by Mayetta American Legion Post 423, he said.

For more on this and other stories, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select “April 10, 2024” under “E-Editions.”