LAKEPORT, Calif. – As Ruth Darling held her last meeting as Lakeport Rotary president on Wednesday, June 27, she oversaw the receipt by her organization of a large check that will help ensure that the sacrifices of American heroes at Pearl Harbor are not forgotten.
Members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association’s local chapter were on hand at the luncheon, held in Lakeport’s Library Park, to give Darling and the Rotary a $10,000 check.
The check is to assist with the future upkeep of the Pearl Harbor Survivors’ Memorial Mast, which sits near the Library Park shoreline.
The monument – which features a blinking beacon at night – is called a mast, not a flagpole, as it symbolizes an actual ship, in honor of the men and women of the U.S. Navy and the other branches of the military who served at Pearl Harbor during the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.
The memorial mast is a project that is at the heart of an existing collaboration between the Rotary and Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. In fact, the Lakeport Rotary built the monument under the leadership of past president, Dave Meek, to honor the survivors.
During special ceremonies the U.S. and California flags are flown on the mast, along with the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association’s flag and the flags representing the branches of the U.S. military.
Ronnie Bogner – who along with wife Janeane are honorary members of the group, hosting special events and organizing the annual Dec. 7 remembrance ceremony – said the mast may be the only monument of its kind in California.
Keeping an eye on its future preservation is important to the local Pearl Harbor Survivors’ group, whose members are dwindling in number.
Since November 2011 four of the local Pearl Harbor survivors have died – Chuck Bower, Jim Harris, Floyd Eddy and, in April, Walter Urmann.
Lakeport resident Bill Slater, the president of the group and its youngest member at age 87, said there are now only three local men left who served during the attack.
He joked that he had become president by default, and that the group was “down to the bottom of the barrel. They don’t have any choice now.”
He was accompanied at the Wednesday lunch by one of the other two local survivors, Henry Anderson, 93, of Lakeport, who was aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee.
Anderson jokingly gave Slater a hard time, adding, “They gotta dig deep” in coming up with their new president.
Unable to attend was Clarence “Bud” Boner, who like Anderson, also served on the U.S.S. Tennessee at the time of the attack.
Also attending were several Pearl Harbor “sweethearts” – the honorific used for the widows of servicemen who served.
They included Vanya Leighton, whose husband Fred was aboard the U.S.S. Ramsay; Alice Darrow, whose husband Dean was aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, and who also had been a longtime companion of Urmann’s; and Charlotte Bower, whose husband, Chuck, was stationed at the U.S. Sub Base at Pearl Harbor.
With an eye to the future, Slater said the hope is that the Rotary can help preserve the memorial to Pearl Harbor and not let his generation’s efforts be forgotten.
That’s a sentiment echoed in a plaque on the memorial mast’s base, which reads, “The Lake County survivors ask that you remember kindly those of us who have passed on and dedicate our memories to the future generations, who will defend our flag.”
Slater credited the Bogners with coming up with the idea of working with the Rotary to make sure the memorial is preserved.
“Janeane and Ronnie are the driving force,” said Slater, adding they had helped keep the group going.
Janeane Bogner said the money that the association gave to Rotary came from selling Pearl Harbor pins and postcards, yard sales, raffles and memorial donations made by the community when members died.
Ronnie Bogner said the group believes the Rotary has a long future ahead of it, and can help keep the memorial and its purpose alive.
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