On Reviving the Memorial Day Parade

Yahoo

7 days ago

Sherry Wyatt wanted a parade for Memorial Day.
Growing up in rural Missouri, she remembers her aunts and uncles visiting from Kansas City for the holiday weekend. There was an uncle who served in Vietnam, and cousins who also served in the military. She remembered putting flowers on graves of family members, having a picnic with homemade ice cream, and then playing guitar, fiddle, and mandolin.
When she moved to Columbia, Sherry wanted her two sons, Sterling and Chandler, to know what it means to be American, that our way of life does not happen by chance or by luck but by sacrifice. So, she took them to the Memorial Day airshow and parade.
"It was true Americana," she told me by telephone. "They brought in vintage planes and gave rides. There was a big transport plane you could tour. Before the Blue Angels did their thing, the Golden Knights jumped out of planes and landed on Broadway Street downtown, right in between the stores."
For 30 years, Memorial Day festivities in Columbia, county seat of Boone County and home of the University of Missouri, attracted thousands of visitors from across the state. The two-day airshow followed by a wreath-laying ceremony and veterans parade was the citys way to honor and remember those who fought for our country. It was the largest event of its kind in the state of Missouri and free to the public.
Then, in 2019, everything stopped.
"I didnt think much of it at first," Sherry said. "Covid came and went, but the parade didnt come back. By 2023, I thought, why doesnt someone do something? We should memorialize our fallen. When I woke up on Memorial Day last year, I told my husband I would restart the parade."
Columbia is the fourth most populous city in Missouri, after Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield. Surrounded by farmland, the city proper is compact, modern, and youthful. Dozens of coffee shops and restaurants thrive in the downtown, which practically blends into the universitys campus and makes touring by foot the best way to experience the community. If you walk a half-mile from the edge of Mizzous campus through downtown, youll find the Specialist Sterling William Wyatt Post Office Building. From there, hop on one of Columbias many jogging trails and wend your way a few miles to the edge of a neighborhood at the top of a hill, where a grass-roots campaign resulted in the dedication of Sterling W. Wyatt Memorial Park in 2013. Sterlings parents - Sherry and his father, Randy - live just down the street, in the same house where they raised Sterling and Chandler.
Like many of her generation, Sherry grew up in the country before moving to the city to pursue a career. She always considered herself patriotic - she recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school, respected the flag, and walked in parades.
"But everything changes when you get the visitors to your door," she said.
In 2012, thats how Sherry and her husband learned their firstborn son had been killed seven months into his first deployment to Afghanistan. An IED detonated under his vehicle. At the time, Sterling, age 21, was serving as an infantryman assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
"The day I take my last breath is the last day Ill dream about him. Every holiday, every birthday, every family celebration, theres a loss. You cannot survive hurting like you did at first, so you make choices. Bitter and angry. Drugs or drinking. Or will I live a life worthy of my childs sacrifice?"
She settled on the last option. Sherry established a nonprofit organization and recruited board members, sponsors, and volunteers from the same community that rallied around her after Sterlings death. Though there wont be an airshow this year, the first "Gold Star Memorial Day Parade" has been a labor of love. When the parade begins at 10:00 a.m. in downtown Columbia, visitors will see vintage cars and hotrods, marching bands, even the universitys prized "Missouri Mules" spiffed up in ceremonial hitch. Of Boone Countys eight Gold Star families from the post-9/11 wars, six will be grand marshals leading the parade.
In reviving the Memorial Day parade, Sherry hopes to share some of her affection for Columbia with a new generation, and to thank the community for helping her family survive the unthinkable. For her, Memorial Day isnt just a three-day holiday but an occasion to be grateful for neighbors and country, to look on with awe and admiration at generations of young Americans who gave their lives, families, and futures for an ideal.
"Our son died serving his country in the place where our country said he needed to be, and he did it to the best of his ability," Sherry said.
"I think my son died for the ideal of America."
John J. Waters is author of the postwar novel 'River City One.' Follow him at @JohnJWaters1 on X.