Tribute bricks honoring veterans will surround Floyd County Freedom Rock
Jacob Stokes, 17, stands next to the Floyd County Freedom Rock in Rockford. Stokes will be working on landscaping the ground around the rock with bricks showing the names of Floyd County veterans as part of an Eagle Scout project. Press photo by Thomas Nelson.
Jacob Stokes, 17, and Sandi Willman hold veteran tribute bricks in Rockford. Stokes will be working on landscaping the ground around the rock with the bricks showing the names of Floyd County veterans. Press photo by Thomas Nelson.
Jacob Stokes, 17, stands next to the Floyd County Freedom Rock in Rockford. Stokes will be working on landscaping the ground around the rock with bricks showing the names of Floyd County veterans. Press photo by Thomas Nelson.
By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com
The Floyd County Freedom Rock committee is putting together a tribute to veterans, carving their names in bricks that will surround the painted boulder in Rockford.
“Those bricks are leftover pavers that we didn’t use on the boulevard,” said Sandi Willman, one of the tribute brick organizers. “When Kathy Tumilson got the Freedom Rock to actually be placed in Rockford the committee got together about the landscaping around it.”
Somebody on the committee thought they could use the leftover pavers, Willman said.
An application form and $50 needs to be submitted for veterans to have a brick laid.
The money for the bricks will go toward the Freedom Rock Committee.
“Then I put the money in the bank,” Willman said. “The money goes into a fund.”
The landscaping is being put together as part of an Eagle Scout project by 17-year-old Jacob Stokes.
Jeff Ott, a bricklayer, is going to be assisting Stokes.
“My brother and uncle are in the Marines and my grandpa served in the Korean War,” Stokes said.
Stokes said he wants to recognize the veterans in the community and the project should take him a couple of weeks.
“We just thought it would be a nice tribute to veterans of Floyd County,” Willman said.
The veterans don’t need to currently reside in Floyd County, they just need to have some connection to the county.
The boulder originally came from a Floyd County farm and was painted this summer.
“This is part of just doing the landscaping around it,” Willman said. “The city gave us permission to use as much land as we need.”
Right now there are more than 70 bricks that need names.
“It’s going to be a work in progress,” Willman said.
Veterans’ Day was the first day that the applications for veteran tribute bricks were handed out. Williams said she has received applications from as far away as Florida already.
Brick applications can be mailed to Willman at 501 Riverview Drive, Rockford IA 50468.
“This could be going for a long time,” she said.
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