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                                            Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker

                            Re-dedication Ceremony, October 18, 2018

Pictured on either side of the Seaford NJROTC Cadets are:  Jim Zeigler, Spade & Trowel Garden Club Blue Star Chair, State Representative Honorable Danny Short, Carol Johnson, Spade & Trowel Garden Club President, Charles Anderson, Seaford City Manager (Cadets are:  Tashawn Brooks, Spencer Burdette, Leja Dinga and Mariah Brady)

The Spade & Trowel Garden Club held a re-dedication ceremony Oct. 18 as its Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker was returned to its place of honor on Route 13 in Seaford. The marker, originally erected by the club in 1981, serves as a tribute to the Armed Forces who have defended the United States of America.

The Blue Star became an icon in World War II and was seen on flags and banners in homes for sons and daughters away at war. The Blue Star Memorial Highway Program was adopted by the National Council of State Garden Clubs in 1946 to create a ribbon of living memorial plantings across the nation. The marker in Seaford, just north of the Route 20 West intersection (across from Dover Pools), was the first in Delaware and is one of only eight in the state.

The planting around the marker had long since languished and is no longer permitted in the highway median. The marker itself had rusted badly. Spade & Trowel Garden Club member Jim Zeigler took on the task of getting the marker refurbished. Zeigler said he has many relatives who were veterans and he lost friends in the Vietnam war. “I enjoy our freedoms. I love our country. I have always flown a flag at every home where I have lived,” he said. Those are some of the reasons restoration of the marker was important to him.

Restoration was made possible through the DelDOT Community Transportation Fund acquired through the state of Delaware and State Rep. Danny Short and could not have been accomplished without help from the City of Seaford.

A color guard from the Seaford High School Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps joined club representatives, Rep. Short, and city officials as a wreath was laid at the foot of the marker Thursday morning. Some 60 guests celebrated at a ceremony following at the VFW Virgil Wilson Post in Seaford.

##Article by Carol Kinsley - Above photo by Joe Fulgham - Following photos by Andrea Straw, Carol Johnson, Carol Kinsley and Joe Fulgham

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