Sep 21 2023
Destiney Dingess | Harold-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON — Officers with the Huntington Police Department, Cabell County Sheriff’s Department and West Virginia State Police escorted the new Gold Star Families Memorial Monument in to West Virginia and to its location near the Memorial Arch in Huntington on Wednesday morning.
The last wish of Hershel “Woody” Williams, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War ll, was to have a Gold Star Families Monument placed in Huntington to honor the families of those whose loved ones died during military service.
The Woody Williams Gold Star Families Monument Committee and the Southside Preservation & Enhancement Alliance have been working for over a year to make that wish come true. On Wednesday morning, the committee got one step closer to fulfilling his wish as local law enforcement escorted the finished monument from Bailey Granite & Monuments in Flatwoods, Kentucky, to its permanent home at Memorial Park near 11th Avenue West and Memorial Boulevard.
