A monumental dedication
Ontario’s Veterans Monument features lifelike eagle
By Sean Hart
Argus Observer
SeanH@argusobserver.com
Saturday, November 7, 2009 10:17 PM PST
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| Veterans Monument Committee Chairman Chuck Sokolik speaks at the monument’s dedication Saturday in front of Four Rivers Cultural Center, 676 S.W. Fifth Ave., Ontario. |
ONTARIO — Veterans have a new place of honor in Ontario.
The highly anticipated Veterans Monument in front of Four Rivers Cultural Center was dedicated Saturday.
The monument still requires some finishing touches — the emblems of all the branches of service and the names of more veterans on the tiles — but the crowning attribute, a 3-foot eagle, is now atop the five-sided monument, and the site was blessed during the dedication.
“That eagle is phenomenal,” Chuck Sokolik, chairman of the monument committee, said. “If it didn’t glisten like it is, you wouldn’t know whether it is real or not. Everybody that worked on the monument did excellent work.”
The highly-detailed eagle was made by Chris Schofield, Weiser, and it was one of the few pieces of the monument not purchased in Ontario, Sokolik said.
Blake Rebman, the veteran and owner of Engraved Expressions who designed the monument and did much of the work, said the eagle far exceeded his expectations and that the monument brings cohesion to all veterans.
“It brings us all together,” Rebman said. “It helps congeal the veterans and what we stand for.”
Sokolik presented the Veterans Monument to the city of Ontario at the dedication, and Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick said it was an honor to accept it.
“It’s just a beautiful gift to the city,” Dominick said. “I saw the base go up the other day, and I kept driving by because I wanted to see it ... we’re lucky to have such great local artists.”
The community was extremely supportive of the monument, Sokolik said, and local veterans stepped up to make it happen.
“Everybody just got together — all the veterans — and just got at it,” Sokolik said. “There’s not a whole lot, if you put a group of veterans together, that you can’t do.”
Lifestyle Editor Sean Hart can be contacted at SeanH@argusobserver.com.
