Memorial Foundation Report
We start by officially welcoming Melissa Old as the new Foundation Treasurer. While her official start date was June 1, we greatly appreciated her stepping up early in mid-May to take on all responsibilities. One more shout-out to Greg Wright and his service to the Foundation. We also welcome his replacement, Josh Koepke. Please take the time to meet and find out more about Melissa and Josh in this edition of the magazine.
We continue to add and update our new Foundation website. Travis Johnson has been wonderful to work with and offering him a round of applause for all he completed in bringing the dream to life. Another atta-girl to Gail for her assistance in this. The following link is your quick access to the website and hopefully, you will save it as a favorite on your toolbar: mofirememorial-museum.org. We also have links set up for you to order and pay for bricks, wall engravings, Foundation merchandise, and special promotional items. There are quick links to other supporting services and organizations. Top right of the page you have Memorial, Museum, Visit, Contact, Shop, and a search function. Please check us out and explore all the options on the entire page.
Our new mailing address and mailbox are now available. Just name one of the three organizations you have business with and address it to 5550 Dunn Drive, Kingdom City, MO 65262. Just in case you may have forgotten one of the three, that make up the Foundation, they are the Firefighters Memorial Foundation of Missouri, the Firefighters Historical Preservation Foundation of Missouri, and the Missouri Fire Service Funeral Assistance Team. As this is a drop box inside of the future museum building, it is not checked every day. If something is truly time-sensitive (less than 10 days), you should reach out to me or one of the Foundation members. Thank you, John Weffelmeyer of Fenton, for being our first – 1st class stamped letter to arrive in our new mailbox. Special thank you to Steve Nichols for installing all of the stuff which had to be customized to fit correctly through and into the wall and then donating all of his time and materials in memory of Art Smith.
We have a dedicated email address, and you may also contact us at info@mofirememorial-museum.org.
ENGRAVING
The Foundation has extended the deadline in advance of the October services to July 22. All of our prep work must be turned over to the engraver by August 1. Referring back to my comment about time-sensitive items, if you are looking past July 12 with an engraving order, please contact me or use our website for the order. Do not put your full trust in the mail to arrive on time after July 12th.
At the time of this article, we will be honoring three line-of-duty deaths and just over 100 other names in the October Services. That could increase depending on the Department of Justice’s ongoing application and review process. Our three heroes for this service are Lloyd Ruediger, New Haven Berger FPD, Tadd Russell, Brumley FPD, and Raymond Winn, Kansas City FD.
We have received some very good news from the Missouri Department of Transportation regarding the widening of Interstate 70. The first of their three initial starting points on this project is Columbia to Kingdom City. The current design as proposed does not affect our site in any major way, but I am not yet sure about all things regarding the final traffic patterns. At least for now, all good, a big relief, and this section kicks off in Columbia in early 2025.
The Foundation has been and remains very busy with the ongoing work and planning of things having met on site March 7, April 10, and June 9. Our next meeting is July 17th via Zoom and we are discussing meeting in person following the FFAM Board meeting in Sedalia on August 4th. These are open meetings for anyone interested in attending. If you have something that needs to be brought to our attention but cannot attend, please contact me or any Foundation Member.
At this time, we still have one open position which followed when Doc Kritzer retired from the Board. Doc left some big shoes to fill with his numerous regional contacts and work ethic. If you are interested in taking on this open position that will involve a lot more than just being available for meetings, please contact President Jennings and have a conversation. The president of the FFAM per the by-laws receives the names of interest, completes the initial vetting for the position, and then makes a recommendation to the Foundation which we must review and accept, or not.
Our museum’s Facebook page has reached 657 followers plus 557 likes and counting. If you have not seen the landing page, please check us out. We will again be working with the CoMoGives Campaign for 2024. We pledged to give this a three-year commitment, so one more time and then evaluate. Please look for more information in the November/December magazine regarding the December 2024 launch.
SAVE TWO DATES
The first is September 14th. The Missouri Fire Service Charity BBQ is raising money for the Missouri Firefighters Cancer Support Network and the Museum Project. The event will be held at the Museum in Kingdom City (5550 Dunn Drive). In addition to the BBQ competition, there will be a variety of great food, children and family activities, raffles, and giveaway items. For those attending, we hope this presents an opportunity to bring greater awareness regarding your memorial, the future museum and education center plus greater awareness regarding the annual honors that are provided to our firefighters who have served and passed.
Three weeks later please join us for the 2024 Memorial Services. Saturday, October 5th at 7:00 pm is the candlelight service, and the Sunday morning service is October 6th at 10:30 am. Going forward, our annual services will be guided by the first Sunday in October with the candlelight service occurring the evening before. We will be honoring over 100 names from 2023 plus a few that were previously missed in our last service. If you have any questions about the October services, please contact me at keith.smith1974@yahoo.com or 314-709-0760. For engraving forms and information, you can go to our new website at mofirememorial-museum.org our new email address, or contact me directly.
Thank you for your time and continued support of your memorial and future museum.
FFAM
