Springdale to host Veterans Day parade

Event Held In Springdale To Tie In With Concert

Retired Sgt. Eugene Keister smiles May 30, 2011, during a Memorial Day ceremony at Fayetteville National Cemetery. Several hundred people attended the annual service that featured Rear Adm. Jerry R. Kelley as the keyote speaker.
Retired Sgt. Eugene Keister smiles May 30, 2011, during a Memorial Day ceremony at Fayetteville National Cemetery. Several hundred people attended the annual service that featured Rear Adm. Jerry R. Kelley as the keyote speaker.

Eugene Keister landed in France with the U.S. Army’s 782nd tank battalion June 20, 1944, two weeks after D-Day. The Fayetteville native spent parts of the next 18 months in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Belgium and Germany.

He recalls a time while crossing the Rhine River in Cologne, Germany, the Germans hit the pontoon bridge his tank was crossing. He almost didn’t make it out of the tank because the door slammed shut and he couldn’t open it.

At A Glance

Veterans Day Parade

The parade starts at 2:30 p.m. Sunday and will run west along Emma Avenue in Springdale, starting at Community Park Drive and ending at Main Street. Area veterans, school bands, military units and the Highlander Bagpipers will be among those participating.

Starting at 1:30 p.m. there will be military educational exhibits on display at the A&M Railroad depot on Emma Avenue. Veterans will be on hand to meet and greet the public.

After the parade, at 4 p.m., a patriotic concert will be held at the First United Methodist Church at 206 W. Johnson Ave., a block north of Emma Avenue.

For more information visit nwaveteransday.org.

Source: Staff Report

A fellow soldier got a crowbar and pried the door open for him from the outside.

“He saved my life,” Keister said. “Boy, I thought I’d had it.”

Keister, 89, is a regular at Veterans Day events. He plans to be among those riding in Sunday’s Veterans Day Parade in downtown Springdale. It’s an important event, he said, especially considering the rate at which veterans of his generation are dying.

“World War I vets, they’re all gone,” Keister said. “And World War II veterans are dying at a rate of about a thousand per day.”

The parade was held in Fayetteville the last two years, but is in Springdale this year to tie in with a patriotic concert also being held Sunday at the nearby First United Methodist Church.

Krystal Osbon, vice president of the Northwest Arkansas Veterans Day Association, helped revive the parade two years ago after it hadn’t been held for several years.

“The importance for me is that the parade gives the everyday public a chance to step up and say thank you for the sacrifices the veterans have made for us,” Osbon said.

At least seven World War II veterans will be at the parade, she said. Before the parade there will be a meet and greet with veterans at the train depot on Emma Avenue, where there also will be informational exhibits from various wars, presented by the National Society of Leadership and Success.

Keister returned to Fayetteville after the war and went to work in the construction business. Now retired, he lives just down the road from the Fayetteville National Cemetery, where many men he once knew are buried.

Keister is a familiar sight to many people in Fayetteville. At least once every few weeks, he said, he stands in front of a local Harps store accepting donations for the VFW National Home for Children and other causes. He said he’s been doing that for 30 years.

Keister remains proud of his service and his country. He wears a USA cap and flies an American flag from the back of his pickup. To anyone who visits his home, he will happily show off the Army uniform he wore more than 60 years ago.

“If I had to do it over, I’d do it again,” he said of his service to his country.

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