Bend to receive ‘Medal of Honor City’ designation
During the 2017 legislative session, the Bend Heroes Foundation successfully advocated House Bill 2100 designating U.S. Highway 20 as the Oregon Medal of Honor Highway and House Concurrent Resolution 1, designating 12 Oregon cities as a “Medal of Honor City or Community.”
HB 2100 and HCR 1 honor Oregon’s 26 Medal of Honor recipients (Civil War to Vietnam).
HB 2100 was implemented with the installation of 12 Oregon Medal of Honor Hiighway signs on the 451-mile Highway 20 between Newport and the Oregon-Idaho border near Nyssa . The Bend Heroes Foundation paid ODOT $24,700 for fabricating and installing the signs on the first border-to-border Medal of Honor Highway in our nation.
Beginning on Wednesday, the foundation will implement HCR 1 by installing plaques in the 12 cities to which the 26 MOH recipients are connected: Agness (1), Bend (1), Corvallis (1), Eugene (1), Hood River (1), Jordan Valley (1), Medford (1), Oakridge (1), Portland (13), Richland (1), Salem (2) and The Dalles (2). Number in parenthesis is the number of Medal of Honor recipients connected with that city/community.
Before HCR 1 became effective, there was only one Medal of Honor City in our nation – Gainesville, Texas. Now there are 13.
The foundation will present each city council with a framed “(name of city) Medal of Honor City” plaque, framed HCR 1 and a framed photo and citation of all recipients connected with their cities.
The first presentation will be the three plaques to the Bend City Council at 7 p.m. on Wednesday. If his health allows, Bend resident Robert D. “Bob” Maxwell, our nation’s oldest living Medal of Honor recipient will participate.
