A Place To Remember

Campus leaders gathered last fall at the Court of North Carolina, one of NC State’s Hallowed Places, to dedicate the Veterans Memorial Garden.

The garden is a culmination of efforts dating back to 2020 between NC State’s Jeffrey Wright Military and Veteran Services, Facilities Division, Office of the University Architect, the Shelton Leadership Center, and alumni Reg Harris ’71 and Larry Hancock ’69, ’00 MS, who believed in honoring fallen alumni from all conflicts on foreign soil.

“You want to be able to give something back to an institution, your alma mater you love so much,” says Hancock, who, along with Harris, served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army. “And this was a small way to not only do that but to honor people in uniform.”

The garden, which includes a fountain, a space for reflection and cast seals to commemorate each branch of service, sits in a direct line of sight with the Memorial Belltower. “For us, it’s the impact of having it in such a sacred location in close proximity to an already existing memorial to the military on campus,” says Nick Drake, director of Jeffrey Wright Military and Veteran Services.

“It’s the impact of having it in such a sacred location in close proximity to an already existing memorial to the military on campus.”
— Nick Drake

Also featured is a QR code for a Scroll of Honor, serving as a list of all alumni who died in combat. The list currently features the names of those who lost their lives in World War II, but the hope is to collect the names and stories of those lost in conflicts from the Korean War to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Friends and alumni can submit a name by visiting the Veterans Memorial Garden website.

Veterans Garden photographs by Rory Sullivan, NC State

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