Group seeks $30K in resident donations to complete Fallen Soldier Memorial

EPHRAIM—A subcommittee of the Ephraim Cemetery Board is working to install a “fallen soldier’s memorial” east of the present gazebo in the Ephraim Park Cemetery.

In fact, the Recreation, Arts and Parks Tax Committee, the panel that allocates proceeds from the city RAP tax, has already awarded $40,000 for the project. (A few years ago, voters approved a 1/10th-cent sales tax on all purchases in the city, with the proceeds to go to recreation, arts and parks projects.)

The Fallen Soldiers Memorial Subcommittee has raised another $10,000 on its own but needs to raise $30,000 more to complete the project, says Alma Lund, the subcommittee member and former city councilman who spearheaded the project.

A flier is inserted in this week’s Sanpete Messenger, which is being sent to all households, with a form residents can send in to donate.

Meanwhile, Brad Taggart, professor of art at Snow College, who has sculpted various monuments throughout Central Utah, has already completed a sculpture of a woman holding a baby and child standing beside her holding a folded flag, the type of flag families receive during burial services for a veteran.

The monument, which is presently at a foundry being cast in bronze, represents families left behind when a soldier is killed in action.

The gazebo, with walls open to public view, was installed in the cemetery about 20 years ago. On the walls are placards with names of all veterans from the Blackhawk War forward who are buried in the Ephraim Cemetery. The monument is updated on a regular basis.

A little to the south of the gazebo is an older monument made of boulders containing name placards for 10 of the 11 soldiers buried in the cemetery who were killed in action (KIA).

Each year on Memorial Day, the Cemetery Board honors one of the KIA veterans. (See the Scandinavian Heritage Festival magazine inserted in this newspaper for an article on the KIA veteran being honored this year.)

But there are problems with the current monument. It isn’t designed to allow additional names to be added. And it is deteriorating. While children shouldn’t climb on the monument, the city’s insurance company pointed out if one did, and the boulder or boulders under the child’s feet could fall out, and the child could fall and be injured. The stone monument is scheduled to be removed soon.

Lund, who was not serving in any official capacity when he proposed the memorial, says he had the thought, “We already have a veterans memorial. I’d like to have something to honor fallen soldiers.”

He says he was moved by a memorial he saw in Monroe in Sevier County. It shows a woman, who could be a widow or a surviving mother, kneeling on what looks like a tomb in front of what appears to be a headstone. He says he wanted to see something similar in Ephraim.

At Lund’s suggestions, the Cemetery Board agreed to create a subcommittee called the “Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee.”

The subcommittee started meeting in September 2025 and since then has been discussing the design of the memorial. The first decision was to go ahead with having Taggart sculpt the main statue.

Other plans call for installing a triangular concrete slab from the east side of the gazebo near to where a large American flag now stands on east side of the cemetery. A new wall containing all KIA names would be installed near the point in the triangle. The wall would be large enough so “we could add names later if we need to,” says Penny Kittlesrud, a subcommittee member. The statute of the woman and children would face the wall.

A draft design for the wall itself (not yet final) has an inscription at the top that says, “Sacrifice goes far beyond the battlefield,” assumedly a reference to family members left behind. The panel has already hired Dalton’s Memorial Engraving of Moroni to create placards with the names of the 11 KIA veterans.

The subcommittee decided to place the large American flag near the triangular concrete slab. The flag would be at the center of a semicircle of flags. The rest of the semicircle would contain flags of the branches of the service—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force.

“We want to wait until after Memorial Day for the groundbreaking,” Lund said. He added that the subcommittee steering the memorial hopes to complete and unveil it by Veterans Day in November.