By Rebekah Yancey

rebekah.yancey@hartselleenquirer.com

The monuments honoring Priceville veterans who served their country and paid the ultimate sacrifice have been replaced.

The black marble monuments previously standing at Veterans Park were beginning to show their age and were not handling the extreme heat of the Alabama summer, Mayor Sam Heflin said.

“You could actually see cracks in the marble, so we were afraid safety wise that somebody would come by and one of them could break,” he said. “Plus, with the cracks, we were losing some of the integrity on some of the names.”

An anonymous citizen donated $26,000 toward the project, and Heflin said the rest of the funds were raised or donated by the Morgan County Commission, Sen. Arthur Orr and the Alabama Delegation. The total cost of the project was $75,000.

“All the military monuments were replaced, and we’ve gone back to a gray stone that should hold up a lot better and not have the cracking issues,” Heflin said.

A monument exists for every military branch, and a service member is added if they are killed in the line of duty, Heflin added.

The Town of Priceville held a POW/MIA ceremony at Veterans Park Sept. 16 from 5-6:30 p.m.