By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
City pays tribute to Hometown Hero
Memorial Cutline2
Mayor Harold Fowler and Lt. Col. Jason T. Kidder prepare to lay a wreath at the Veterans Monument in J.F. Gregory Park to remember those who gave their lives in the name of freedom. - photo by Steve Scholar

Richmond Hill Mayor Harold Fowler opened the city’s annual Memorial Day observance by honoring those who have fallen in the defense of the country and then paying special tribute to one who didn’t.

In what has become the norm for the mayor during the annual observance, he picked a “Hometown Hero,” and this year thanked Donald Singleton for his selfless service to the nation.

“He served 19 months and 23 days in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne. He was injured and received the Purple Heart,” the mayor said.

Fowler noted Singleton has always been active in his community and cited his work with local veterans, his behind-the-scenes work to bring the traveling Vietnam Veterans Wall to the city in 2008 and having served as the grand marshal in the city’s Christmas parade as examples of the hero’s civic involvement.

The special speaker for the observance was Lt. Col. Jason T. Kidder, commander of the 3rd Squadron, 7th US Calvary Regiment at Fort Stewart.

Before a group of about 125 people who gathered under threatening skies to listen to the speakers and pay their respects to the nation’s fallen, Kidder, who served two tours in Iraq, said it was only fitting to honor those “who are no longer with us. They are not forgotten.”

“We don’t gather here today to honor those with the most medals. We gather to honor the more than 1 million men and women who have given their lives in the defense of our country in all the nation’s wars,” he said.

Kidder went on to say the country owes a special debt to the families of the fallen, citing the many children who will never know a parent killed in action.

Ana Parodi, commander of Post 2331of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and Rick Gardner, with the local American Legion post, said the nation and Congress owed a special debt of gratitude to those killed in defense of this country and cautioned against forgetting the special promises made to veterans who serve their country every day.

“Veterans paved the way and have given us the reputation as the finest fighting force in the world. We pay tribute and remember our finest,” Parodi said.

Gardner spoke of the importance of hiring veterans and making sure the Veterans Administration is being responsive to the needs of those it is tasked to represent.

“Veterans won’t let veterans down,” he said.

The ceremony concluded with the laying of the wreath of remembrance at the Veterans Monument, a 21-gun salute to honor the fallen and the playing of taps by Richmond Hill police sergeant Tim Saia.

Sign up for our E-Newsletters
Later yall, its been fun
Placeholder Image

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

Latest Obituaries