John Whittaker
Pictured are Allie Burdick, Cattaraugus County commander; Jim Lemanski, Chautauqua County commander; Howie Van Rennselaer; Stan Kawski, 8th District chaplain; and Steve McCord, 8th district service officer and Cattaraugus County director of Veteran Services.
Submitted photos
Editor’s Note: The Post-Journal is looking back at the top stories of 2020 and the way they will shape the coming year. Today, 20 for 2020 looks at the municipal stories that were among the most-read in the newspaper this year.
Chautauqua County is home to 134,000 or so people, depending on the time of year and just about every one of them has an interesting story to tell.
The Leader
BATH - Usually, around 400 to 550 people lay wreaths in honor of veterans at the annual Wreaths Across America event held at Bath National Cemetery. This year, however, the event closed to the public and confined to just a ceremony to honor veterans with the wreath laying being pushed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although it was limited to just 10 people, officials felt it important to still hold a traditional pre-wreath laying ceremony to honor veterans even if it didn t include the traditional wreath laying afterwards.
“I think the importance is still to recognize veterans,” said Tom Dowd, Bath WAA Co-Coordinator. “We couldn’t recognize every grave based on our decision, but we could at least recognize the veterans buried in the cemetery by having a ceremony.”
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