‘14 Sons of Sutersville’ will be memorialized
By Eric Seiverling
eseiverling@yourmvi.com
Because of the efforts of Sutersville Volunteer Fire Company Chief Mark Ghion, the popular phrase “better late than never” will ring true this summer.
What started three years ago as a Memorial Day invitation to speak about the borough’s 14 deceased veterans — also known as the “14 Sons of Sutersville” — has now turned into a borough-wide effort to permanently recognize the 14 veterans who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Sutersville’s borough council recently gave approval to change 12 of the area’s streets and the area’s fairgrounds to the last names of the veterans to guarantee the men will be forever memorialized.
The name changes should be official with new street signs installed before summer’s end.
The project started in 2018 when Ghion decided to research the lives of the 14 men. It was an undertaking that took him from his own neighborhood to around the world.
“I declined the offer to speak because I didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said already,” Ghion said of the invitation from Mayor Alaina Breakiron in 2018. “My dad (World War II and Korean Conflict veteran Alvin Ghion) was the last living person to be on that honor roll and he died later in 2018. He was the last living link. That made me think ‘Now what?’
“As a kid in Scouts, I only heard about Memorial Day and it’s origins, but there’s an entire life behind the names and each one of them has their own unique story. I started wondering who these people were, and when I’m gone, who’s going to remember them?”
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