At the regular meeting held on July 17, 1945, Vice President Jim Laing announced that a committee of citizens under the Kent Chamber of Commerce, would soon meet to consider the erection of a suitable memorial to the men who had gone into military service from Kent and vicinity during World War II and that George Bowman had been appointed to represent Rotary on that committee.
The following week the guest speaker was mayor Alf Lovell who talked on “Your City- Kent“
A little later the club, at its meeting on Tuesday, August 7, 1945, listened to one of its own members, Dewey Barich, outline his experiences in the South Pacific while in the service of his country. Keep in mind this was one week before the Japanese surrender in World War II. His modest, yet vivid recital of the participation of his unit in the landings at Guadacanal, Leyte and other islands brought home the terrific havoc wrought and the tremendous loss of life occasioned by such encounters. In closing, Dewey pleaded for even greater attention to the establishment of peace than had been given to waging war that these things may not happen again.
And finally, World War II had ended on August 14th, 1945.
Jim Myers
