American Legion Post 32 of Farmville is looking to erect a World War I (WWI) monument by Nov. 11 that honors the men of Prince Edward County who died during the conflict, and post member Daniel Pempel represented this request before the county’s board of supervisors at its meeting Tuesday.

“There was anywhere between 21 and 31 (Prince Edward County men) — I’ve got to get the final count — that were killed in World War I, but no monument was put up,” Pempel said. “So the American Legion would like to try and put one in by Nov. (11th) for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.”

In a letter to the board dated April 9, Pempel wrote that members of the American Legion had read an article by Dr. Ray Gaskins about the World War I monument that was never erected in the county. Pempel added Tuesday that the monument was canceled two or three times.

“We took a vote to see that a suitable monument is erected,” he wrote in the letter. “The Legion would like to erect one in front of the county courthouse, next to the other war memorials. The Legion would pay for it, and I checked with the Simmons Monument (Company), in Crewe, for a suitable monument.”

Buffalo District Supervisor C.R. “Bob” Timmons Jr. said, “You all got a design and a size and all that for your monument?”

Pempel replied by sharing projected design details that came out of discussions with Gary Simmons, of Simmons Monument Company.

“It’s recessed with the heavy cutting on the sides,” Pempel said, “and he was thinking a straight, smooth-fitting finish and then engrave the names on it and then probably have something in the order of, ‘In memory of the men of Prince Edward County who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War, 1914-18.’ And the one out there is 54 inches wide, and we figure somewhere between 36 and 40 inches wide and about the same height as the other two monuments (that) are out there.”

Timmons said, “What I would suggest is to have him do a drawing, not necessarily with the verbiage but the drawing for the size …”

Then he instructed Pempel to submit that to County Administrator Wade Bartlett.

Bartlett noted a policy that needed to be taken into account in the decision-making process with regard to the monument.

“We have a policy that we adopted,” he said. “We’ll have to blow the dust off of it … because it covers various things, to include how to verify what names to put on the monument. We did that with the last one …”

He noted this name verification process involves contacting a particular section out of the Department of Defense (DOD).

Timmons asked Pempel, “So, can you get that information? You’re going to need to get that information …”

“Ok,” Pempel replied. “You’ll have the list that I have, and there’s like three books from the state of Virginia, and they have 300 lists of names. And I’ve got the one from DOD also.”

Bartlett said, “Just contact me … and we’ll work together and then we’ll gather all that …”

Timmons said that after that, the issue could be brought straight to the board.

With regard to the adopted policy on monuments, Bartlett said, “I’ll email it to the whole board so you all can refresh your memories.”