Emporia ? It’s Memorial Day weekend for communities across the nation, but in Emporia, the focus is on Veterans Day.

Emporia is widely considered to be the place where Veterans Day began. Each year for a week, the town of 26,760 residents celebrates with parades, war re-enactments and USO shows.

“It’s the whole town getting together. It’s not just veterans tooting their own horn,” says Tom Tholen, 84, who served in Company B, 137th Infantry Regiment of the Kansas National Guard.

Emporia paid a heavy price in World War II, Tholen says. His company sent 110 men from Emporia into combat. Sixteen died in action; two died during training.

This year, a group of civic boosters and veterans wants more than a tribute for the Nov. 11 holiday. They want Congress to affirm the town’s role in history, and they want President Bush to recognize the occasion with a visit.

It all started in the early 1950s with an Emporia man, Alvin King. King’s nephew fought in Company B and died in the Battle of the Bulge.

King, a shoe repairman, had raised his nephew as a son. He became a member of American War Dads and pushed to change Armistice Day from an observance of World War I veterans to a day for all those who served in the military.

King pitched the idea to his congressman, U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, who sponsored legislation changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day. Another Kansan, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, signed the bill into law in 1954, a year after Emporia had its first all-veterans celebration.

The first celebration featured a parade, a lunch “feed” and a chili and pie supper, a free dance and movie, and a basketball game played in wheelchairs, according to 1953 stories in The Emporia Gazette.

Today, veterans from every war generation deserve recognition from Congress and the president, said local businessman Jim Hill, who serves on the steering committee for this year’s celebration. Some veterans don’t like to talk about their experiences, said Hill, a Navy commander whose father survived Pearl Harbor.

“It’s painfully real. I know what the sacrifice is,” Hill said. “These men carry this, but yet they quietly would really like this tribute.”

The Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce is organizing the events and working with lawmakers on congressional efforts.

Congressional support

U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran said his staff had not found competing claims that would dispute Emporia’s history as the town that started Veterans Day. Moran introduced a bill this month making Emporia’s role official and recognizing the contributions of King; U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts is working on the effort in the Senate.

“This really was instigated by the people of Emporia,” Moran said. “They take it so seriously, and it means so much to lots of people in the Emporia area. In addition to the recognition of Emporia, I think what they really want to do is recognize the veterans.”

Community spirit

Above is a plaque at the same memorial Tholen visited Friday that honors Alvin King, an Emporia resident credited with getting Armistice Day changed to Veterans Day.

It meant a lot to the community back then, too. When King was invited to Washington for the bill signing, members of the Company B Assn. raised the money to buy him a suit. King ran a shoe repair shop and didn’t own one.

“We just passed the hat to buy him some clothes so he’d look presentable to the president,” Tholen recalls. “A suit, and two shirts, and a couple of ties. His wife made sure he was buried in that suit.”

King died in 1960.

Tholen said the way it all came about helped keep his town enthusiastic about Veterans Day.

“The history of it, and the fact that it was finally put into congressional action by an old shoe cobbler that was a poor man but had his head on straight, and he knew what to do about it to push it into some action,” Tholen said, “I think that’s the part of it that makes Emporia go so well.”