MARYSVILLE — Student organizers have been calling it "Our Wall" with the idea that the nearly complete monument belongs to the community.
On it are 20 names of soldiers from Marysville and the Tulalip Reservation who died in wars.
On Monday, those names — engraved on metal plaques — were installed on the brick wall to become a permanent fixture near the entrance to Marysville-Pilchuck High School.
"When you look at this structure, what do you see?" asked Kristen Hendrix, a senior at the school. "If you take it at face value, you’ll see some bricks, cement, flowers, benches and an odd-shaped wooden pole with six languages."
To Hendrix and others, however, it is much more.
It represents hours of research, planning and fund-raising, although even the time investment seems inconsequential.
"There is always time to give for something like this," she said.
Hendrix will always remember the hour she spent with Betty Pearson, whose son, Robert, was an Air Force pilot who died over North Vietnam.
"I never realized the effects of war until doing this project," she said. "It goes way beyond the soldiers."
Robert Pearson, she learned, had a mother, father, brother and wife and a daughter he never got to meet.
Hendrix said the project is the school’s way of recognizing those who died in war and of thanking all veterans. The plaque has names dating from World War I through the Vietnam War.
The school’s Distributive Education Clubs of America program, better known as DECA, raised more than $20,000 for the monument while working with the Marysville Rotary Club.
"Isn’t this great?" said Marysville Mayor Dennis Kendall, an Air Force veteran whose service took him to Vietnam and other parts of Asia in the early 1960s. Kendall started working with the students last year in his capacity as a Rotary leader long before he was elected to run the city.
Chelsea Ring, co-president of the school’s DECA program with fellow senior Natasha Lebedev, said the project promotes "civic consciousness and social intelligence."
"We want to broaden the view of the world in the eyes of students," she said.
"It’s big, and it’s real, and we did it," said Jim Pankiewicz, who teaches the DECA students.
The students still plan to plant trees as part of the memorial before a June 17 formal dedication in which surviving family members of the soldiers will be invited, Hendrix said.
Students have been creating display boards with pictures and biographies of the hometown soldiers. Along the way, they have spent time meeting veterans face to face to hear their stories.
When all is done, they hope the families and local veterans will feel comfortable to come any time and know that young people do care, Hendrix said.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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