Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 5, 1990 TAG: 9007040131
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELAINE VIEL
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
On this monument will be the names of the hundreds of sons, husbands, lovers and brothers who left the green and safe countryside of Pulaski County to defend their country.
Tonight's kickoff of the Country Music Expo '90 will mark the beginning of Cox's five-year plan that he hopes will raise $100,000 from community donations to build the memorial.
Cox quickly explains that the idea wasn't his. The Hiwassee Highlander Recreation Committee, an informal citizens' group involved in community projects, had originally decided to build a monument. "And then the courthouse burned down in December."
The suggestion was made, he said, "that we build the Veterans Memorial within the courthouse complex."
The idea was broached to the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors, and the board agreed to it.
Ideally, Cox said, the proposed monument would contain the names of all those county residents who served in every war from the Revolutionary War through such military actions as the invasions of Granada and Panama.
Even Cox doesn't know just how many people that would be, and admits that if the number were extremely high it might not feasible to include them all. In that case, he said the names of the servicemen who died in these wars and engagements would be carved on the memorial.
Cox, who retired from the Army in August after "35 years and 19 days," and others involved in the project envision a memorial as personal as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
"We want to have names on it," Cox said. "When you write a name on it, it becomes very personal.
"We gave ourselves a period of five years," Cox said about putting together the necessary funds. "There are 35,000 people in the county," he added. "That works out to . . . one six-pack of Coke or two Buds. . . ."
The $20,000 that needed to be raised this year wasn't coming fast enough he said when the idea for Expo '90 hit.
With the help of two Dublin businessmen, Herman Pifer and his son Tim, that idea has turned into a reality.
Herman Pifer's Valley Auto Care is sponsoring the event and Tim Pifer's Tim's Nationwide Tickets is doing the promotion, Cox said.
Country Music Expo '90 will feature regional bands in competition over two days.
Herman Pifer said that 11 bands have entered the competition, which will be held Friday and Saturday at the New River Valley Fairgrounds in Dublin.
Tonight, a non-competitive jam session will be held. "It'll be like sitting in your own backyard," Pifer said.
The bands will represent such communities as Bristol, Ivanhoe, Pulaski, Radford, Pilot and Glen Lyn.
The money raised by the event, including proceeds from a Veterans of Foreign Wars food booth, will go toward the veteran's memorial fund.
On Friday, all 11 bands will compete and be judged on a scale of one to 10. The top nine bands will then return Saturday to compete for prize money and trophies.
Tonight the Expo runs 7 p.m.-11 p.m. On Friday and Saturday the competition begins at 2 p.m. and winds up about 11 p.m., Pifer said.
"So far it's gone well," Cox said of the upcoming fund-raiser. The main thing though is to get together the money and finally build a veteran's memorial to honor those Pulaski Countians who "watered the tree of liberty with their blood."
For further information about Country Music Expo '90, call 674-8467.
by CNB