By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Over the past nine years, five large granite memorial stones have been placed at the Golden Belt Cemetery north of Great Bend as the Golden Belt Veterans Memorial. The center monument with military insignias was placed in May 2014, and most recently, Stone IV was dedicated on Veterans Day in November 2022. Local painter Melanie Ryan was recently hired by Barton County to do some touchup work on the older stones. She found a new set of problems on the newest monument: poor engravings.
"When they're cut deep enough, the word is still legible because light and shadow fill in those deep grooves," she told the Barton County Commission Tuesday morning. "But if they're not deep enough, wear and tear in 15 years, they'll be gone."
In all, the stones contain the names of more than 1,000 Barton County residents who have served in their country in everything ranging from the Civil and Spanish Wars to the present. While the older stones exhibit some natural fading, Stone IV will require more work than a simple touchup. Some of the engravings are too light to register, and others have been blown out with broken stone around the fine lines of letters. That makes it impossible for families to do memorial etchings of their loved ones' names. Commission Chair Shawn Hutchinson said Kansas Granite Company, the manufacturer of the stones, needs to be held accountable.
"It sounds to me like what we need to do is send the manufacturer some sort of letter that says if you don't have this resolved in 'x' amount of days, whatever is appropriate, or months, then we are going to hire someone else to resolve it, then we're going to send you the bill," he said. "If you don't pay the bill, we're going to sue you."
In the meantime, Ryan believes she can restore the previous three stones in time for Veterans Day. In Tuesday's commission study session, the body agreed to pay Ryan approximately $13,600 for labor and materials to do the work.
"I can get it looking uniform, and I can get it looking legible from every angle," Ryan said.
Various county officials said previous to contact Kansas Granite Company about the issues were met with little or no answer.
"The families each have had to pay for this so I think it's our responsibility to keep looking at this," said Commissioner Duane Reif. "They trusted us to keep looking at this."