Proclamation issued for Airborne Day on Grand Island

Deputy Town Supervisor Jim Sharpe, left, listens as Joe Army Airborne veteran Joe Synakowski speaks at Monday's Grand Island Town Board meeting. Synakowski accepted a town proclamation from the board that proclaimed Aug. 16, National Airborne Day in the Town of Grand Island. The board proclamation "encourages its citizens to observe and commemorate this historic event."

In issuing the proclamation, the board noted the Island is the birthplace and final resting place of two Airborne members: Pfc. Charles N. DeGlopper, who died June 9, 1944, and posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor "for his actions above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a member of Company C First Battalion, 325 Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division" in the D-Day invasion; and Lt. Terrance K. Crowe, an Airborne trooper with the 98th Division who died in Tal Afar, Iraq, June 7, 2005.

In accepting the proclamation, Synakowski noted the ongoing expansion plans for the DeGlopper Memorial at the intersection of Grand Island Boulevard and Baseline Road. (Photo by Larry Austin)