Baylor Trucking arrived in Ripley County to deliver the wreaths for the annual Wreaths Across Ripley County. The annual event takes place every year in December to honor our fallen veterans. Wreaths Across America started in 2007 placing wreaths on the gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery. This event has been expanding ever since. The first year the wreaths were donated to Arlington by Morrill Worchester and the Worchester Wreath Company. Since that time a not-for-profit was created to cover the cost of the wreaths. In Ripley County the event has been organized through the Ripley County Community Foundation by event leader Owen Menchhofer. 

Owen from Ripley County never served in the military, although his son is a career Navy officer and his father served in Korea. Owen says it is a great task to get this done every year but he will do it for as long as he can. At this time there are 4322 wreaths to be placed in Ripley County including three cemeteries in Oldenburg. The cost of each wreath is $17, although $5is donated back to Ripley County Community Foundation Endowment. This allows the wreaths to live on long after their time on the grave sites.

Owen has asked families to come out Saturday Dec. 16th for the kick-off ceremony at the courthouse in Versailles at 12 noon. It is a great event for school-aged kids to learn about and to never forget. From there the group will move to Cliff Hill Cemetery to begin placing wreaths. As each wreath is laid, they ask volunteers to say the veteran’s name out loud to make sure they are never forgotten. This is a great learning experience for all ages. The group has a motto of RHT, meaning Remember The Fallen, Honor The Serving, and Teach The Next Generation of Freedom. Owen stated after all if not for these heroes, we could be a German speaking country right now. The oldest grave site is 1815, the time before Indiana was a State. The Wreaths Across America is a nationwide event all to kick off on Saturday. The Ripley County event is a huge task to keep up with making sure every soldier gets a wreath. Ripley County is the first county in Indiana to honor every plot, although keeping up is a task in itself as veterans are dying every day. Currently about 240 WWII veterans a day are passing on. Vietnam veterans are running at even a higher rate at 390 per day nationwide, and Korean War veterans are at a staggering 600 per day nationwide. These numbers are from Veterans Affairs .gov. We need to Honor these Men and Women as they gave all for our country, Owen said. They have charted every grave site they can, but if you know someone who was missed you can contact the American Legion to get their name on the chart for a wreath. 

Currently they are working on teaching about the veterans and trying to get into school programs. For more information, you can go to wreathsacrossamerica.org/teach . The Ripley County chapter can use as much help as they can get; if you would like to help, you can go to rccfonline.org to donate to this great cause. This is a huge task every year for a great cause to keep this alive. The Ripley County Chapter relies on donations and grants to keep this funded and moving forward as it grows.

Please try to get the family out and join in on this great event on Saturday if only to join in on the kick off ceremony, or you can go out and place just a couple wreaths to help out. It will be a moving experience for all ages. Let’s assure them together that we will never forget them or their names. Let this be your Christmas gift to them.