The Cedar Hill Elks Lodge recently gave commemorative coins to veterans and their spouses at the Arbor View Nursing Home in Cedar Hill after nearly four years of working to raise money, design and produce the coins.
Don Mattingly, chair of the lodge’s veterans committee, esteemed leading knight Miky Balta and members Melissa Johnson and Tessa Folk gave 13 residents the coins on Nov. 22.
“It’s a beautiful coin, designed by myself and Miky,” Mattingly said. “We’ve been working on this for almost four years. We got authorized to make a veterans commemorative coin, and we wanted to give it to all of our veterans in need.”
The Cedar Hill Elks is the first lodge in the state to design and manufacture a veterans coin, Mattingly said. The Missouri Elks Association Board approved the coin design last March.
The design includes important symbols to the Elks, Mattingly said, including an American flag, the silhouette of a soldier and the Missouri Elks Association logo. Around the edge of the coin is the Elks’ motto, “So long as there are veterans, the Elks will never forget them.”
Balta said the coins will be purchased in bulk by lodges across the state and sold to members and to the general public.
“We’re one tiny lodge on the map, but this coin will spread all over and that’s why we’re proud of it,” Balta said.
The price of the coin is set by each lodge, with all proceeds going to programs benefiting veterans.
Afternoon of appreciation
On that afternoon, nursing home employees gathered the 13 residents who have served in the military or are spouses of military veterans in the dining area. For those unable to meet in the dining area for the ceremony, Elks members visited them in their rooms.
Each veteran received a free coin and a firm handshake from Mattingly, who is a veteran.
“The entire state of Missouri has that coin now,” Mattingly said to the group of veterans. “It’s very special to our lives, and I hope it’s special to you. We thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Horst Heinze, 80, served in the Air Force from 1963 to 1998 as an aircraft mechanic in Vietnam. He said he was grateful to the Elks for the coin.
“It was really nice of them,” Heinze said.
Mary Corner, 76, said her late husband Gary Alwin Corner served in the Army from 1969-1972. He was stationed at Fort Belvoir in Virginia before they moved to Zweibrucken, Germany.
“For the whole two or three years we were in the Army, we traveled around quite a lot,” Corner said. “We went on trips up the Rhine River (and) we went to Paris and London. We spent two years there (in Germany) when they had the 1972 Olympics in Munich.”
Corner said she and her husband attended the Olympic games just days after the Munich Massacre, when a Palestinian terrorist group held members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, leading to the death of 11 Israelis, five terrorists, and a Munich policeman.
Peter Keaveny, 69, served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.
“I was young, but I didn’t hesitate one bit,” Keaveny said. “Matter of fact, I enlisted at 17 (and) my mom signed for me, and on my 18th birthday, I got my draft notice. I showed it to the colonel, and I said, ‘I gotta go home, I’ve been drafted!’ I was already in Germany at the time.”
Also in attendance during the ceremony was veteran Lloyd Harris; Air Force veteran Carla Calgher; Marines veterans David Gehring, John Hutt, and Sean Beaury, who was deployed to Iraq as a chef from 2005-2009; Navy veterans Robert Grothaus and Tommy Sexton; Coast Guard and Marines veteran James Moody; and Army veterans Vernon Massman and Frederick Wheeler.
“The Cedar Hill Elks Lodge just wants to say thank you,” Mattingly said to the veterans.