January 20, 2003

Panhandle teen raises a monument to county's veterans
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___FLOYDADA--Seventeen-year-old Skyler Cornelius decided if veterans of wars gone by could lay down their lives for him, the least he could do was stand up for them.
___The member of First Baptist Church of Floydada led a committee that raised $95,000 to erect a granite veterans' memorial in Floyd County, population 8,000.
___He conceived the idea when his family, traveling to Possum Kingdom Lake for vacation, passed through the rural community of Benjamin and saw its memorial. He had his father stop so he could look at it and immediately thought, "If a town of 200 could do it, why not a county of 8,000?"

SKYLER CORNELIUS stands inside the granite monument erected on the Floyd County courthouse lawn.

___He returned home and pitched the project to the 4-H Club, which enthusiastically got behind the idea.
___Cornelius had seen the Benjamin monument July 4, 2001, and by Veterans' Day that year, he was ready to kick off events to make his dream a reality in Floyd County. On the Sunday before Veterans' Day, he and other 4-H members pinned red, white and blue ribbons on about 75 veterans attending worship at First Baptist Church. That morning also marked the first public announcement of the project.
___From the beginning, he said, he felt like God was leading him to accomplish a task some might think too daunting for a teenager.
___"It was amazing the way God put things together," he said. "We never really had to worry about anything, because we'd already prayed about it, and things just happened."
___For example, near the end of the project, he still needed flowers to be planted in the star that marks the center of the 10 pink granite monoliths that make up the monument.
___"It was going to cost about $350 for the flowers, but before we could even think about where to get the money, someone called my mom on the phone to see if we needed any money for anything at the last minute. That's the way it was the whole time--we didn't have to worry about anything because God had already taken care of it."
___Cornelius' two priorities were that the project be finished in a year and that no fund-raisers be held. The monument was dedicated on Veteran's Day 2002--debt-free and without a single fund-raiser held.
___"The granite company that made the monument had done about 30 of these for other towns and counties, and they said this was the first one paid for without a fund-raiser," Cornelius reported.
___The project turned out to be a bit larger than he had at first envisioned. He and his mom, Julianne, estimated there would be about 2,000 Floyd County veterans who had served in battles from the Civil War to the Gulf War, but the number proved to be more than double that--4,036.
___The memorial is designed so that more names can be added later if needed.
___More than 3,000 people attended the dedication ceremony, including a man who said he hadn't been to Floydada in 50 years.
___Also inscribed on the monument are the words of John 15:13: "Greater love hath no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
___

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