For a few days family, friends and colleagues worked to decorate their loved ones’ graves. Several volunteers gave of their time and effort to decorate veterans’ graves with American flags and coins.

On Thursday, May 25, some local Checotah student volunteers and city workers helped place American flags on all the veterans’ graves. They included: Dalton Carter, Dallas Carter, Mason Rainbolt, Wyatt Smith, Blake Keeter and Bryon Smith.

Then the Eufaula VFW Auxiliary Post # 8798 started an Annual Service Project to visit and place a penny on each veteran’s tomb in several local cemeteries.

The project started Thursday at Greenwood Cemetery in Eufaula and Greenlawn Cemetery in Checotah until they ran out of pennies.

A coin left on a headstone lets the deceased soldier’s family know that somebody stopped by to pay their respects. If a penny is left, it means someone visited. A nickel means that the person and the deceased soldier trained at boot camp together. A dime means the person served somewhere with the soldier and a quarter means that the person was there when that soldier was killed.

On Friday, May 26, the auxiliary returned to finish the cemeteries and added another cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery. Those VFW Auxiliary members included: Shannon and Virginia Porter, Diann Cooper, RL Woods, Connie Dickinson, Randy and Shirley McComas, Pat McGowan, Vicki Shaw, Ruth Haste along with the McComas’ grandchildren, Mason and Kyli.

A total of 1,561 veterans’ graves were adorned and honored on this Memorial weekend by these gracious volunteers.