Town Hall may get Blue Star memorial

From the day Esplanade resident Carolyn Lowry-Nation moved to Lakewood Ranch and joined a garden club in 2012, she had a dream. She wanted to participate in the National Garden Clubs’ Blue Star Memorial program honoring military veterans.

Now she's attempting to realize the vision.

Lowry-Nation and the Lakewood Ranch-based Gardeners Out East are working to honor military veterans with a memorial at Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. They want to place a Blue Star Memorial cast aluminum marker in the roundabout in front of the building.

The Lakewood Ranch Community Development District 2 board must approve the project because it owns the property. It is set to vote on the matter at its Jan. 19 meeting.

“It would all fit together,” Lowry-Nation said of having the marker at Town Hall. “It’s a beautiful project. It’s really an honor.”

The site already has been approved by the National Garden Clubs, which started the Blue Star memorial project in 1944.

The garden club would pay for the $1,470 memorial, which measures 41 inches tall by 48 inches wide, and the club is asking the CDD to help install it.

Lowry-Nation, the club’s president, said the group has been talking about the project for about a year. Lowry-Nation began working with the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs and National Garden Clubs for site approval, trying to find a space that met the civic requirements for a memorial not located along a highway.

Town Hall, already a gathering spot for Lakewood Ranch clubs, seemed like a perfect fit. Club members were adamant the marker be within the boundaries of Lakewood Ranch.

“Everyone in Lakewood Ranch, at some time, comes to Town Hall. It’s a place for people to stop and look and appreciate what the armed forces has done and will do,” Lowry-Nation said.

“Hopefully, people think of the benefits we enjoy because these people have served,” said  Karen Eckert, project manager and chairwoman of education for Gardeners Out East.

If CDD 2 approves, the club hopes to install the marker this spring.

“Lakewood Ranch is 20 years old,” Eckert said. “It’s time for something like this to happen here.”

The club has received support of East County-based Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 12055, whose name will be included as a sponsor on the marker. The group also will assist with the dedication ceremony, Eckert said.