By Sue Moore
It took a whole village to help John Vreeman with his Eagle Scout project. He chose to upgrade the veteran’s sign that is featured prominently in front of the Brady Township Hall. He is 16 and will be a senior at Vicksburg High School this fall. He was able to organize so many contributors to the sign project that he gets high marks for organizational skills, said his scoutmaster, Kevin Borden.
All the work was finished by the end of July. He and his dad, Randy, laid out the actual structural plan for the huge new sign honoring Vicksburg’s veterans. He worked with Ken Wolhuis to design the concrete walkway with Fryling Construction. Cary Fryling donated his time to pour and level the concrete.
Vreeman convinced Consumers Concrete to donate the concrete block that is the major structure holding the sign in place. His grandfather, Tom Thomas, who works at Consumers Concrete, helped to make that connection. Next step was to meet with A1 Signs in Portage to design and print all the names from a database in the Brady Township archives. The township donated the cost of materials to make the sign and Rich Raske of A1 donated his time.
To top it off, Vreeman worked with Greg Mills of Vicksburg High School’s Industrial Arts class to design the silver medallions at the base of the sign. These honor each branch of the armed services. They are solid aluminum. The students designed them in their computer engineering class.
Vreeman recruited younger scouts to repaint the flag pole and on the final day of getting all the village workers together, his mom, Angie, fed all the volunteers.