Effort underway to make Owensboro World War II Heritage City
Beth Ewing describes herself as a history nerd.
That's good because she teaches history in the Daviess County school system.
Ewing recently ran across a program of the National Park Service to designate one city in each state as an American World War II Heritage City.
Kentucky is one of 11 states that doesn't yet have a designated city.
And Ewing wants it to be Owensboro.
So does Mayor Tom Watson.
'As a son of a war bride and a father who landed on Utah Beach and earned the Bronze Star, I'm all in on anything I can do to help us attain this designation,' he said.
To get the designation, the guidelines say, a city should focus on the home-front war effort and such things as Civil Defense, defense manufacturing, production of food for the war effort, War Bond drives, people who served in the military and monuments to the war dead.
'I know we had a huge war effort here,' Ewing said. 'We need to collect stories and pictures of things like agricultural production, Victory Gardens, the scrap metal effort, War Bond drives.'
She said the local airport trained pilots, including female pilots, for the war.
'Not many cities did that,' Ewing said.
She said, 'We had at least 20 casualties on D-Day.'
Ewing said she's also trying to collect information on individual men and women who served in the military during World War II.
'My grandfather lost three brothers in the war,' she said.
Ewing said, 'It took ever single person working to stop Hitler. I want to gather as much information as I can.'
She said a book, 'Meet Molly: An American Girl,' that she read in elementary school triggered her interest in the war.
April 30 is the deadline for submitting information to attempt to get Owensboro named an American World War II Heritage City.
People who want to help can contract Ewing at beth.ewing2@daviess.kyschools.us.
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