East Mississippi Veterans Memorial Park Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Today was the East Mississippi Veterans Memorial Park Dedication and Ribbon-cutting Ceremony. The Dedication Ceremony also coincides with Meridian Air Guard's 83rd Anniversary. Community Members, Service Members, and Veterans were all in attendance to take part in today's ceremony.

"Well, we're having our Dedication Ceremony for the F- 4 Phantom that we spent all this time, effort, and money getting here. It's finally come together. Everything has been painted, the sidewalks are in, and our plaques are in. As you probably scanned around a couple of hundred folks out here now to be here with us and it's amazing," said Danny Smith EMVH Board Member.

With the first phase of the park finally coming to completion Jeff Summerlin, the President of The East Mississippi Veterans Foundation says he is so grateful for all of the outpouring of support from the community and can’t wait to begin the second phase.

"It's wonderful. I'm just happy that we've got this far and we're to this point and we've kind of reached a milestone. I'm very pleased with it, and I look forward to continuing the work. So it really makes me feel good. I know a lot of these guys in attendance today and girls are very proud of it also. You know, I want to honor all Meridian, East Mississippi, Veterans, Marines, and the Military community. We should have something like this in honor of a Military town for our Military folks because they are a big key factor to this area," said Summerlin.

One Veteran who previously flew the F-4 Phantom expresses how it feels to see the first phase of the park being completed.

"Oh, this is fabulous. I was really glad that it was done. It recognizes all the hard work that everybody's done at this base to defend this great country of ours. It is a great day, a great celebration, with a lot of veterans here. And it's just a great amount of outpouring support for the Air National Guard and the great state of Mississippi.

The second phase of The Veterans Memorial Park will be The Wall of Remembrance which they hope to begin sometime next year.