One Year Later for Memorial

The Medal of Honor Memorial was dedicated at Minot's Roosevelt Park one year ago today. It's ope...  More »

The Medal of Honor Memorial was dedicated at Minot's Roosevelt Park one year ago today. It's opening came only after a lot of time and effort had been put in by many people. Jim Olson talked with Randy Schobinger - a former state senator who was one of the people who got the project off the ground. Here's his conversation at the entrance to the memorial. (Jim Olson, KX News) I'm here at the Medal of Honor Memorial with Randy Schobinger who now lives in Arizona but was a big proponent of getting this memorial located here in Roosevelt Park in Minot. Randy, tell me how we got to the point of having this memorial erected here. (Randy Schobinger, Memorial Committee Member)A couple of years ago I sat behind Ben Tollefson in the legislature and he was helping a very highly decorated Air Force pilot from Vietnam and other conflicts to try to come up with something to honor our Medal of Honor recipients. The original idea was to find a bridge, the Four Bears Bridge came to mind, the Memorial Bridge to be constructed between Bismarck and Mandan came to mine. We weighed those options and came against some resistance on each of those so I went to Ben and said what if we tried to do a memorial, an actual memorial to these folks? He though that was a great idea and at the time Ben wasn't on the apprpriations committee, I was on that committee so I got ahold of the Air Force pilot and said this would be a nice idea to honor these folks, he agreed and that's how the idea got started and we ran with it from there. There's not a better setting in all of North Dakota than here in Minot in that it's Roosevelt Park, Teddy Roosevelt and his son each earned the Medal of Honor which is unique in history so that's how it came about. (Jim Olson, KX News) You and I stood here on this site a couple of years ago before anything had been built. How do you feel seeing it now compared to then? (Randy Schobinger, Memorial Committee Member)We went out and raised the money, got to give kudos to the private folks out there - the MDU, XCel Energy - they really got the ball rolling on raising the private funds we needed for it. To see it today does my heart amazing things because, while I no longer live here this is a lasting testament to those folks who went above and beyond. (Jim Olson, KX News) And you had a lot of work from a lot of people on the committee too? (Randy Schobinger, Memorial Committee Member)We did. And one of the best things we did was find Bill Kolb to chair this committee. There's no one better in getting people organized, getting them together, getting them to focus on a common goal. Bill did that and this is the result of it - a great thing. (Jim Olson, KX News) And the bottom line is that it honors some very special people, right? (Randy Schobinger, Memorial Committee Member)It honors those North Dakotans that have gone above and beyond the call of duty and earned our nation's highest honor - the Medal of Honor - and nowadays most of them are given posthumously which means they don't make it back from whatever it is they did to earn that. It's something that needs to be - we need to honor those folks and that's what this does. (Jim Olson, KX News) Thanks Randy Schobinger. And by the way this looks great at night when it's all lit up. Give it a try sometime here at Minot's Roosevelt Park. Jim Olson, KX News. You can find the Medal of Honor Memorial just northwest of the entrance to the Roosevelt Park Zoo.  « Less