(Spencer)– An event known as “Taps Across America” has become a Memorial Day tradition in a number of communities throughout the nation, including Spencer, where it was started by Mike Harleman some years ago, and he’s looking to expand that this year…
“We’ve been doing taps at the Golf and Country Club here in Spencer since about 2023, ’22, something like that. This year I’m going to be asking if we can get the community’s support in doing taps from the south golf course and the municipal golf course all the way up Grand Avenue. Ask people if they have an instrument to come up to one of the Grand Avenue corners and play taps, and all the way to the Golf and Country Club on 18th Street West.”
Harleman says he also wants to get the Iowa Great Lakes involved…
“So at 3:00 on Memorial Day if anybody at the lakes would like to go to the lakeshore and play taps, or even go out onto the lake, any of the lakes, be it Lower Gar, Upper Gar, Minnewashta, Big Spirit, Little Spirit, West Okoboji, you know, and play taps at 3:00.”
Harleman says his goal is this:…
“I’d like to really get it so that we could say that in northwest Iowa or the Iowa Great Lakes or the corridor or whatever, we’re the ones that are going to let the rest of Iowa know that hey, we’re doing Taps Across America and you will hear us.”
Taps Across America got its start back in 2012 after Steve Hartman, a national journalist, did a feature story on a man who played taps from his balcony.
