Topics of general interest.
My sister, Valli Louise Dennis Schieltz, passed away on the morning of June 29, 2015. She fought a courageous battle against cancer, but it finally took her life. She was sixty-four years old. This photo of Val with her doll was taken outside a home on Harvard Road when we lived in Winston-Salem. That street … Read more
You all were due for an update. We have been working on this project since 2006. Personally, after years of calling and writing, I have been able to get only one small, local newspaper in Mt. Pleasant, SC to do a story on this project. Senator Bob Dole wrote me and said what an ‘arduous … Read more
It has been some time since I posted, but I assure you, I have never stopped working on this project. I want to update you on our progress. I have attempted to make contact with celebrities who I thought might be interested in helping us promote this project, but I was unsuccessful. I thought I … Read more
This update was written on Memorial Day 2012. The president, politicians, and citizens across the USA honored our men and women who sacrificed their lives for freedom. God bless all our veterans. The past three months, I have been working with several people who I thought could help us move this project forward. Unfortunately, nothing … Read more
Preface: Please do not misconstrue this post or any of my others to be negative. I, along with my colleagues, have been working tirelessly on this project for eight years with the explicit vision to make this memorial the finest and most distinctive in the world. I simply want to honestly share with you some … Read more
It has been quite some time since my last post. This is an update. Unfortunately, I have nothing good to report. I have tried to make contacts with influential business leaders as well as a young, very popular country singer, but to date, I have had no success. The handlers will not pass along my … Read more
I am in the process of planning a 5K road race that could be used as a prototype event for a national series; much like the Stroh’s Run For Liberty back in the mid 80’s. I am going to make a survey available to runners to gauge their interest in the event. If you are … Read more
We designed a Tribute Sponsorship Program and launched it in January, 2011. The focus was corporate support for local fallen heroes. Basically we divided the projected cost of the memorial by the number of fallen heroes and assigned that dollar figure to a personal tribute destined for display on the memorial. That rounded figure was … Read more
I spent the day preparing a list of local Tribute Sponsorship contacts for Monday’s calls. The list includes Fortune 500 corporations and local political leaders. Outback Steakhouse, who supports Operation Homefront, suggested on their website to contact a local restaurant about donations. After speaking with representatives at other stores like Target and Staples, I learned … Read more
Many people ask my why we took on such an immense project. That is a reasonable question. Carl Regutti, an award winning sculptor and chemist, and I refined a technique to do very high-resolution etching on oxide or PVD colored stainless steel. We began R&D in 2004 and continued experiments through 2006. Due to the … Read more