Highway 110 in Whitehouse dedicated as Veterans Memorial Highway
Published 5:40 am Tuesday, May 28, 2024
- Whitehouse mayor James Wansley speaks about the Veterans Memorial Highway on Memorial Day. (Raquel Villatoro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)
On Memorial Day, officials and community members gathered to dedicate Highway 110 in Whitehouse officially as Veterans Memorial Highway.
Whitehouse City Councilman Place 4 Michael Lowe brought up dedicating a city street to veterans during a council meeting. They met twice to discuss it but could not find a way. Some of the streets were owned by the state and some required changing addresses for residents. However, they did not give up.
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They met with the Texas Department of Transportation and used the deep partnerships they have to come to a decision. They were able to get a strip of Highway 110 dedicated as Veterans Memorial Highway.
“We were so proud that they came back with that response,” Whitehouse Mayor James Wansley said. “It was the best response, it’s the best high traffic area in the city. It gets the most recognition. It gets our beliefs as a community toward veterans out there.”
The Veterans Memorial Highway sign has been erected on the side of Highway 110, just past Toll 49, as drivers enter into the city limits.
There are more than 650,000 United States servicemembers who died while in combat; over 540,000 died while in active duty due to non-combat injuries. However, these numbers do not include veterans who died by suicide, said veteran and Whitehouse resident Jim Nipp.
“Sadly, those numbers don’t include the thousands — some of them even my friends — that survived war, survived service, but found that the battle in their mind never ended,” Nipp said. “Since 2001, four times the number of veterans who’ve taken their lives by their own hand than have been lost in combat.”
Nipp highlighted two Whitehouse veterans to remember on Memorial Day.
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Nelson David Trent’s dog tags hang at the cross of the Veterans Memorial. The soldier kneeling at the cross was made in his likeness. Trent graduated in 1993 from Whitehouse High School and was known as the class clown.
“Everybody in the class in 1993 has a fond memory of Nelson Trent and usually there’s a smirk across their face when they think of those memories,” Nipp said.
While on his third tour of duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the patrol vehicle he was riding on was “ripped apart by an improvised explosive device” on Dec. 13, 2012, Nipp said.
He left behind two children and his wife. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in section 60, grave number 10323.
“When you pass this memorial, and when you pass that sign, I want you to think of Nelson David Trent,” Nipp said. “He left behind a wife, April; he left behind a son, David, and a daughter Cameron.”
Tyrone Dwayne Foley, a 1980 graduate of Whitehouse High School, was an all-star athlete and all-district wide-receiver on the football team. He was a gifted musician and performed with his church.
“Everybody that knew Tyrone Foley loved Tyrone Foley,” Nipp said.
In 1989, Central America was going through the cold war. The Panama Canal was in jeopardy which led the U.S. to send forces. On their way to the Panama Canal, the carrier battle group was performing exercises off the coast of Puerto Rico. On April 19, 1989, Foley was loading a gun turret No. 2 at the breach of one of the 16-inch guns when it exploded, killing 47 sailors.
Foley is buried in the New Hope Cemetery in Bullard. After meeting Foley’s family, he promised them they would build a memorial for him.
“My prayer for us in the city is that these two will be the last memorials we ever put in this park,” Nipp said. “That they will be the last Whitehouse sons that we ever lose in combat. My prayer for you today is that as you pass the Whitehouse Veterans Memorial, as you pass the Memorial Highway sign, that you’ll think of Nelson Trent and you’ll think of Tyrone Foley.”
The Youth Community Council started the project for the veterans memorial. High school students who were elected by their peers decided on this project and worked with local officials to make it a reality. This was their first project.
“They chose a veterans memorial which really inspired us in the city leadership, the council, the city staff, and we gave them all that we committed to giving them which was the full $5,000 to make this happen,” Wansley said. “It turns out it takes a lot more than that to build a veterans memorial.”
The memorial cost $60,000 to build. Wansley is proud of the students and efforts of the Whitehouse community.
“It’s something that really makes me proud, it started with our students [and] it was followed up by our community to help bring them together,” Wansley said. “So that’s something that really makes me proud. And we use this memorial to honor those that came before us and sacrifice so that we can have a better life and a stronger country.”