Baldwin County dedicated its first “Blue Star Memorial Highway” marker over the weekend in a ceremony designed to put children face to face with the veterans the honor recognizes, blending a roadside tradition that dates to the end of World War II with a hands-on history lesson for a new generation.
The event, held at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Daphne, gave school-age children a direct role in the tribute rather than treating them as spectators. Organizers handed out ribbons for children to inscribe with a veteran’s name, then asked them to come forward and place those ribbons on a special photograph displayed during the ceremony. Afterward, children were encouraged to meet and take photos with veterans in attendance during a reception, turning a formal dedication into a personal encounter between the generations the marker is meant to connect.
“It’s to make the young people aware of what veterans have done for this country,” said Dr. Barry Booth, an Eastern Shore dentist who spearheaded Honor Flight South Alabama, a program that flew veterans to visit military memorials in Washington, D.C., from 2007 through 2013. Booth has spent years organizing ways for the Gulf Coast to honor its aging veterans, and the Blue Star marker dedication extended that work in a form designed to outlast any single event.
Booth said organizers distributed roughly 2,000 flyers to area schools urging parents to bring their children to Saturday’s dedication. The outreach reflected a deliberate choice by the organizing committee: rather than filling the hall exclusively with civic groups and garden club members, they wanted families in the room, and children in particular, when the marker was formally dedicated.
Veterans of Normandy in the Room
Two World War II veterans who had previously taken part in Honor Flight trips attended the ceremony, and their presence gave the dedication a living link to the war the Blue Star program was created to commemorate. U.S. Army Sgt. James Nickerson, 97, survived the Allied invasion of Utah Beach on D-Day, wading ashore in Normandy on June 6, 1944. U.S. Army Maj. Jack Jacobson, 104, took part in the invasion of Normandy as well, making him one of the oldest living participants in that campaign anywhere in the country.
Men of their generation are disappearing rapidly from public life. The veterans who stormed the beaches of Normandy are now in their late nineties and beyond, and each public appearance carries the weight of a closing chapter. For the children who placed ribbons and posed for photographs at the Daphne hall, the chance to shake the hand of a soldier who landed at Utah Beach is one history will not offer again for long.
“It’s a significant event, and a historic one for us,” Booth said, summarizing what the marker represents for Baldwin County. The county is home to a substantial veteran population, drawn in part by the region’s military installations and the retirement communities along the Eastern Shore, and the dedication gave that community a permanent place of honor along its roadways.
A Tradition Born in 1945
The new designation comes with a bronze plaque similar to those seen along roadways, parks, gardens and cemeteries across the country as part of the national Blue Star Memorial Highway system. The program is one of the longest-running living memorials in the United States, and its markers have become familiar landmarks to travelers who pass them on highways from coast to coast without always knowing their story.
The National Garden Clubs, Inc. launched the program in 1945 to honor members of the Armed Forces during World War II, taking its name from the blue star that families once displayed in home and business windows to signify a loved one serving in the military. A blue star in a front window told a neighborhood that a son or daughter was away at war; a gold star signified the profoundest loss. The banner tradition made its way onto the nation’s highways when garden clubs began planting and maintaining memorial gardens at rest stops and overlooks, marked by the distinctive bronze plaques.
Blue Star Memorial Markers Chairwoman Andrea Little attended to formally dedicate the marker, representing the national organization that administers the program. Formal dedication by a chairwoman of the national markers program underscores that Baldwin County’s marker is part of a coordinated national network rather than a purely local tribute, connecting the Eastern Shore to a system of memorials that stretches across every state.
The Garden Club of Montrose, which has long focused on beautification and civic projects along the Eastern Shore, took a leading role in bringing the marker to the county. Garden clubs across Alabama have been the engine of the Blue Star program since its founding, handling the fundraising, site selection and ongoing maintenance that keep the markers and their surrounding plantings in good condition year after year. The work is a natural fit for organizations whose mission pairs horticulture with community service, and it explains why so many Blue Star markers sit in landscaped settings tended by volunteers.
Honor Flight’s Legacy on the Gulf Coast
The dedication also highlighted the continuing legacy of Honor Flight South Alabama, the program Booth led from 2007 through 2013. Honor Flight takes its name from the mission of transporting veterans, at no cost to them, to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials built in their honor, with World War II veterans given the highest priority. For the Gulf Coast veterans who made the trips, a day spent at the National World War II Memorial was often the first formal recognition many of them had ever received for their service, decades after coming home.
The program’s effects reached beyond the veterans themselves. Guardians who accompanied them, school groups who greeted their flights home, and the communities that welcomed them back all took part in a recognition ceremony that many families describe as transformative. When the South Alabama program wound down its flights, its alumni network and the relationships it built remained active in the region’s veterans’ community, and events like the Blue Star dedication draw on that foundation.
Hosting Nickerson and Jacobson at the ceremony carried that legacy forward. Both men had flown on Honor Flight trips during the program’s run, seeing the memorials dedicated to their generation, and both returned to Baldwin County as ambassadors of a living history that fewer communities can still claim.
Why the Eastern Shore Was the Right Setting
Daphne and the surrounding Eastern Shore communities sit along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, connected to the military history of the region by proximity to Mobile’s port and installations and by the generations of Baldwin County families who have served in every American conflict. The Knights of Columbus Hall, a familiar gathering place for community events in Daphne, provided a venue large enough for the ceremony and reception while keeping the event grounded in a neighborhood setting rather than a government chamber.
Baldwin County’s population has grown rapidly for decades, making it one of the fastest-growing counties in Alabama, and much of that growth has brought new residents with no family ties to the area’s military traditions. The organizers’ emphasis on school outreach was aimed squarely at that reality: children whose families moved to Spanish Fort, Fairhope or Daphne in recent years may have little connection to the World War II generation, and the dedication was built to introduce them to that history in person.
Placing the marker along a Baldwin County highway means the honor will be visible to thousands of drivers every day, most of whom will pass it without ceremony. That is the quiet genius of the Blue Star system: the memorials do their work in the background, reminding travelers on ordinary trips that the road they are driving and the freedom to travel it were paid for by those the plaque honors.
What the Marker Commits the County To
A Blue Star designation is not a one-day event. The garden clubs and volunteers who sponsored the marker take on its upkeep, ensuring that the plaque and its setting remain a fitting tribute in the years ahead. Community organizations that wish to hold their own observances, from Memorial Day to Veterans Day, now have a physical anchor for those gatherings in the county.
For the veterans of Baldwin County, the marker joins an expanding network of recognition that includes the region’s memorials, Honor Flight’s legacy and the ceremonies held across the county each year. For the children who wrote names on ribbons and met soldiers from Normandy, it offered a memory likely to outlast the weekend. And for the two World War II veterans in the room, it was one more chance to be thanked, in their home community, while that thanks could still be given in person.