Local historians hope to inform area children
about servicemen lost in war.
A local
group of historians hopes to educate area
schoolchildren on the sacrifices previous
generations made on their behalf.
The West Chester Men's Service Club will
introduce the Chester County Hall of Heroes Web
site at special dinner on Nov. 7 at 6:30 p.m.
The Web site at [www.chesco.org/heroes] is
expected to be used as a learning tool for
teachers and students throughout the county
school districts.
Members of the Hall of Heroes education
committee, an outgrowth of the service club,
have prepared information packets to be
distributed to educators to encourage them to
involve their students in the project. The
service club and local historians reached a
major milestone in 1999, when the Hall of Heroes
was unveiled at the Chester County Courthouse in
West Chester.
"There was already a World War I memorial in
the courthouse," said club president Jerry
Schneider of New London. "We thought it would be
great to have a monument that recognized local
soldiers who died in World War II, Korea and
Vietnam." In all, 585 Chester County
natives lost their lives in those three armed
conflicts. Their names permanently line the
walls of the special exhibit inside the
courthouse. "Our next project was how to
reach kids with information about those
soldiers," said Schneider. "We wanted to bring
those names to life by telling the stories of
the people that are on the wall."
The education committee was formed with
historians, active and retired educators and
dignitaries like Chester County Commissioner
Andrew Dinniman and current West Chester Mayor
Dick Yoder. "We kicked around a lot of
ideas on how to reach kids," said Schneider. "We
discussed sponsoring school trips for students
to take a tour of the hall and creating
curriculum projects." However, the
committee settled on a Hall of Heroes Web site
that would list the names of all the soldiers
honored on the monument.
The Web project soon became the focus of the
group as the county commissioners provided
access to the Chester County site as a launchpad.
The Heroes Web site is now up and running based
on a design implemented by Web artist Dave
Williams.
Rather than simply listing the names of the
veterans, the committee and more specifically
historian Don Wambold set about doing research
on the individuals. Wambold dug up
information on 18 area soldiers and met with
their surviving family members in order to
create a fuller image of the people and
re-establish links between the community and the
veterans who sacrificed their lives for it.
The committee hopes that area high school
students embark on a similar exercise as a
senior project or part of a history or
government class activity. As students do
research on the soldiers and submit biographies,
the information will be posted on the Web site
under the name of their specific service person.
The biographer also gets a by-line on the Web
page.
According to Schneider, teachers from all
over the county have been invited to the dinner
ceremony and families for six of the war
veterans will speak about their deceased kinsmen
and the heroes project. Living veterans,
including former state senatorial candidate and
ex-marine pilot Hank Detering, will also be
honored during the ceremony. Chester
County educators in attendance will be offered a
list of all the servicemen and women from their
respective school districts along with
instructions on how students can conduct
interviews with a few examples courtesy of
Wambold.
"We welcome any participation," said
Schneider. "Anybody is welcome to get in on it."
Schneider assures that the only reason for
the project is to familiarize area children with
those that came before them and those that made
sacrifices for their freedom.
"I hope they wonder how many books were never
written or how many of those soldiers may have
become county commissioners," said Schneider. "I
hope they realize that these were actual people
with dreams and aspirations, just like them."
