Bill passes to honor fallen soldiers

BOONE COUNTY, Mo- A bill was passed Tuesday to name a portion of Highway 63 after two fallen military heroes who sacrificed their lives in the Gulf War.

The two fallen soldiers were U.S. Navy Lieutenant Patrick Kelly Conner and U.S. Army Specialist Steven Paul Farnen, who are both from Boone County.

The bill was created after an existing memorial, located at the Boone County Courthouse, became the center of some controversy. A ichthus, which is a symbol of Christianity, was at the bottom of the memorial and was deemed unconstitutional on public property.

Last August, commissioners voted to move the memorial to an obscure location. State Representative Chuck Basye felt that the two fallen soldiers’ memorial needed to still be easily seen and remembered. “As a person that lost an uncle in a navy aircraft accident, I know how devastating that is for family and friends to lose someone of that nature, and so I just thought this was a good thing to do for the families mainly.”

Basye says naming a part of Highway 63 will pay better respects toward the men that sacrificed their lives for this country. “I just thought these two young men memorialized in a little better location instead of like in the back of the cemetary somewhere.”

Basye was also very careful to say that this was not a political thing and he meant no ill will towards the commissioners, “I don’t want to take a shot at the county commission, because I’m not. They had a difficult decision to make.”

The bill was passed with no objections.

The next step will be to raise the donations for the memorial signs, however Basye says that shouldn’t be a problem.