American Legion members brighten memorial highway markers
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The white metal crosses seem to sprout up along every Montana highway.
Erected by American Legion posts across the state, the markers serve as memorials for those who have lost their lives in car wrecks.
Post members from the Mission American Legion teamed up Saturday to add a fresh coat of paint to the 45-50 markers along Highway 93 from St. Ignatius to Cenex in Ronan, and along Highway 200 from Highway 93 west to Perma, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.
It’s a yearly tradition the Legion takes seriously.
“We take pride in it, we really do,” Homer Courville said Saturday.
The post members also weld new crosses, which are placed at sites by referral from a family. This year, donations allowed the post to build 16 crosses. Fifteen have already been set along the highway.
“We just have one left,” post member Art Andersen said — a sobering thought, and a reminder to be alert and cautious while traveling the highways this holiday weekend.
Officially known as the St. Ignatius America Legion James R.W. McCarthy Post 106, the post was named after a WWII soldier from St. Ignatius and has been active since 1947.
Post members support youth in the St. Ignatius summer recreational softball by soliciting donations, building advertising signs for the outfield and putting them up and taking them down each year. Many of the members regularly participate in military honors at veteran’s funerals and post colors in parades.
The American Legion organization nationwide was chartered and incorporated by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization devoted to help other veterans, youth, and each post’s community.
