PARIS – Nearly seven months after launching the project, the Paris Veterans Monument Committee has announced that the monument dedication ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 20, in Moore Park. The announcement was made by Committee Chairman Onni Raasumaa.

“There are many people and businesses who have made contributions, large and small, to this monument,” said Raasumaa, “who have worked on the site getting it ready for the stones, and who have helped clear the way. We can’t thank them enough for the help they provided getting us to this point. We hope they can all be present or represented at the dedication.”

The event will conclude a $44,000 drive that will eventually provide for a total of five 36-inch by 60-inch polished granite stones containing the names of Paris residents and natives who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the most recent South Asian wars.

Three of the stones will be on the site for the dedication, with additional names for the final two still to be tabulated and carved. Two of the stones to be unveiled on July 20 will list 324 names. The center stone will list 162, for a total of 810. The remaining two stones will have room for 648 more names.

Both remaining stones and the cost of carving the names have been covered in the cost of the monument, as has been a flag pole at the site. Lighting will soon be added, illuminating the monument and the flag.

Flower boxes at the site were built and installed by Richard Ramsay. The committee plans additional landscaping at a later date.

The names are not listed chronologically or by the war in which service people fought. That is because the time needed for the work on each stone and the process of verifying names would have extended the process by many months and significantly increased the cost.

A list of the names and a codifying of the location on the stones has been prepared by committee Secretary Barbara Payne. The list will be available at the dedication.