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  • Efforts Underway To Bring “Blue Star Marker” Program To Dickinson County

Efforts Underway To Bring “Blue Star Marker” Program To Dickinson County

May 24, 2023 Steve Schwaller

(Spirit Lake)– Here’s a special story as we head toward Memorial Day. Efforts are underway to put special markers in each town in Dickinson county to honor veterans. Mariann McNabb of Linn Grove is one of the major organizers of the “Blue Star” program in Iowa. She tells KUOO news it got started in the 1940’s. She says she brought the concept to her home county of Buena Vista county in the late 1990’s…

“Then in 1998 I took it to my garden club at the time and said, you know, I think we should put a Blue Star marker in and one of the older women said, why can’t we have two? No reason. So we put two in. One on 3 and 71 at the junction and one by Gabrielson Park which has since been moved into Sioux Rapids. And then we started working on every town in the county and so Buena Vista county was the first county in the nation to be a Blue Star county to honor our veterans by having a Blue Star marker in every town in the county.”

She says the idea caught on from there, with neighboring Cherokee county becoming the 2nd Blue Star county in Iowa and Clay county the 3rd. McNabb says they’re now meeting with individual city councils throughout Dickinson county. The Spirit Lake City Council Tuesday evening voted to purchase two of the markers. One will likely be placed at Memorial Park with the other at the corner of Highways 9 and 71, near the flags. McNabb says at least one other city in Dickinson county also plans to purchase a marker…

“I went to Lake Park, to their council meeting, and they’re going to get a Blue Star marker, and this was the second town in the county, so we only have eight counties, or eight more towns to go to be a Blue Star County, and we can do that.”

McNabb says they’ll be meeting soon with other Dickinson county cities to see if they’d be interested as well.

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