City rededicates Veterans Memorial Coliseum
T-R PHOTOS BY LANA BRADSTREAM — The American and Iowa flags were given a color guard at the Monday rededication ceremony of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. About 60 people attended the event.
Mayor Joel Greer declares March 15, 2021 as the Rededication of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The ceremony was held on Monday in the reopened structure.
Marshalltown Parks and Rec Recreation Supervisor Jennifer Hart embraces singer Jason Brown and thanks him for helping raise enough money to rebuild the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Very few people knew about Brown’s appearance at the rededication ceremony until he was called to the front of the room.
Fundraising Committee Co-chair Steve Storjohann speaks at the rededication ceremony for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The event was held on Monday.
Kelli Thurston, a member of the Fundraising Committee, tells the crowd about the efforts made to raise enough money to rebuild the Veterans Memorial Coliseum after it was severely damaged by the 2018 tornado.
T-R PHOTOS BY LANA BRADSTREAM — The American and Iowa flags were given a color guard at the Monday rededication ceremony of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. About 60 people attended the event.
Mayor Joel Greer declares March 15, 2021 as the Rededication of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The ceremony was held on Monday in the reopened structure.
Marshalltown Parks and Rec Recreation Supervisor Jennifer Hart embraces singer Jason Brown and thanks him for helping raise enough money to rebuild the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Very few people knew about Brown’s appearance at the rededication ceremony until he was called to the front of the room.
Fundraising Committee Co-chair Steve Storjohann speaks at the rededication ceremony for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The event was held on Monday.
Kelli Thurston, a member of the Fundraising Committee, tells the crowd about the efforts made to raise enough money to rebuild the Veterans Memorial Coliseum after it was severely damaged by the 2018 tornado.
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The Veterans Memorial Coliseum has two reasons to cherish March 15. Not only was that day -- Monday -- used as the day of the grand reopening and rededication, but 90 years ago, residents of Marshalltown gathered to do the same thing on March 15.
Roughly 60 city officials and people active in the reopening, watched the rededication ceremony and listened to a variety of people speak about their memory of the Coliseum.
Marshalltown Parks and Rec Director Geoff Hubbard welcomed the socially-distanced crowd into the spacious gymnasium before the color guard presented the American and Iowa flags for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Fundraising Committee co-chairs Vic Hellberg and Steve Storjohann regaled the small crowd with memories and spoke about the $1.3 million fundraising effort.
"Seeing this community come together to support us after being knocked down hard two years in a row is just amazing," Storjohann said. "We had donations coming in from all over the country. They all had ties in some way to Marshalltown."
He said he carries many fond memories of the Coliseum, and now is the time for people to make new ones.
Karn Gregoire, the executive director of the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation, said the foundation embraced the opportunity to help fix the tornado-destroyed town. She challenged residents to use the Coliseum as a benchmark for which standards can be set amidst the continuing tornado and derecho recovery.
Fundraising Committee members Deb Mettlin and Kelli Thurston said everyone who donated to restore the Coliseum deserve a round of applause. Thurston told everyone the highest honor the committee could give to a donor was the Medal of Honor, which was awarded with a gift of $10,000 or more. More than 20 Medal of Honor recipients were invited to the rededication ceremony.
Jennifer Hart, the recreation supervisor for the Marshalltown Parks and Rec Department, presented an award to Jason Brown for all of the help he gave Marshalltown. Brown hosted a 2019 benefit concert to raise funds for the Coliseum.
Mayor Joel Greer said one of his favorite fundraising memories was learning about the Marshalltown High School Class of 1964 which raised more than $10,000 for the effort.
"That's the kind of thing that happens around here," he said.
Greer officially declared March 15 as the Rededication of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Hubbard and City Administrator Jessica Kinser said the city had actually started working on renovating the Coliseum in 2017, and then the tornado hit which was kind of fortunate as it opened up the usage of insurance money.
The ceremony ended with the return of the color by the color guard.
Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.