Submitted by Sheridan Historical Society
Earlier this year, the Sheridan Historical Society was approached by local resident Vance Wallace and asked if we would be interested in creating military veteran banners for local soldiers past and present. The banners would be displayed from streetlamp posts along Sheridan’s Main Street.
Several other regional communities have done this, and it sure seemed like a promising idea to our Society members, so when this opportunity came up, we jumped right on it. At first, submissions were slow, and we thought the community was not too interested. But as previously reported, within a couple of weeks we found ourselves inundated with applications and donations.
Jump ahead to early November when the Historical Society was beginning to think about Christmas decorations. As we did last year, we wanted to have trees inside the Museum all decorated and lighted and visible through our front windows. Last January, after Christmas was over, we had someone donate a beautiful 12-foot artificial tree and this Christmas we had the perfect spot for it: right smack dab in the main walkway in the museum.
Sheridan Historical Society Vice President Steve Martin had the idea of creating these Christmas ornaments from the banners already made to hang throughout the town. (Photo provided by Sheridan Historical Society)
As for decorations, yes, we did the usual ornaments and lights, but Vice President Steve Martin had a special thought: why not create a special ornament for each of our veterans for which we have a banner? They are easy to make if you know how to create simple graphics on the computer and add veteran pictures and then make that into a three half-inch button, which is designed with a red ribbon for hanging on the tree. A prototype was made, and it looked great and was easy to suspend on the branches of the big tree in the walkway. Now, 140 buttons later, we have a 12-foot Veterans Christmas Tree at the museum – and it is beautiful.
Sheridan residents are invited to visit the museum to see all our Christmas decorations and especially the Veterans Christmas tree.
We are still accepting information and pictures for Sheridan community veterans so they can have a banner on our Main Street celebrating their service, and next year a button ornament on our special tree. We ask that you donate $100 for each banner submission because it isn’t cheap to have them made, and if you would like the button ornament of your veteran, we can make that available to you for $5 a button when the Christmas season is over.
While we have your attention, we want to lay out another idea for veteran recognition.
The ornaments now decorate the 12-foot tree at the Historical Society Museum, located at 315 S. Main St. (Photo provided by Sheridan Historical Society)
We know the banners we currently have will not last forever even though they are of heavy-duty vinyl, so serious thought and discussion has been given to an engraved brick monument to be placed on the flag plaza in Veterans Park. Engraved bricks would be relatively indestructible, to say the least, but again, they would not be cheap. We are looking at $150 each for a brick.
The Historical Society would like to hear your thoughts about a brick memorial. Is it too much in light of $100 for a banner? Please let us know how you feel about this.
Thank you to the Sheridan community for your support of the Society’s veteran’s banner project. It has turned out better than we had imagined it ever would and we will continue to add banners as they come in in the future. And if the $100 donation is a problem for you, come talk to us. We have had very generous people in our community come forward and your veteran’s banner could still be created and displayed at little to no cost. The important thing is that we want our military veterans recognized for the sacrifice they have made to our country.
The Sheridan Historical Society Museum is open on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., and at special times with advanced arrangement. Our museum is located at 315 S. Main St. in beautiful uptown Sheridan, the northwest gateway to historic Hamilton County. You ought to visit with us.