T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY MPD Capt. Chris Jones and Rose Hill Cemetery Co-Owners Brandon Lenehan and Jody Anderson pose for a photo next to the new plaque honoring former officers and K9s who have died. Rose Hill donated the plaque to the MPD at no cost.

As a former police officer who served both the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office and the Marshalltown Police Department during his seven-year law enforcement career, Rose Hill Cemetery Co-Owner and Anderson Funeral Homes Funeral Director Brandon Lenehan has a special appreciation for the men and women who wear that uniform.

That led he and his business partner, AFH Owner Jody Anderson, to work together on a pair of special plaques honoring the 31 former MPD officers and six K9 units who have died since 1940, including Glen Crouse, the lone MPD officer to be killed in the line of duty in 1954. The timing felt especially right in light of the passing of longtime MPD Capt. Brian Batterson earlier this year at the age of 56 after a battle with ALS and frontotemporal dementia.

MPD Capt. Chris Jones knew Lenehan and reached out about getting some sort of memorial made, and Lenehan in turn worked hand in hand with AFH’s monument division to get the designs finalized. From there, it was a question of what to charge the MPD, and in the end, the answer was nothing.

“Part of owning a business, and with Brandon being my partner in the cemetery, I said ‘We’ve gotta give back, so why not do this?’ So that was our decision to donate this to the police department,” Anderson said. “I’m very proud of (Brandon) taking this forward. I didn’t do much but say yes. He did the rest.”

Lenehan was equally complimentary of Anderson and their partnership.

“Jody was very nice to bring me on and teach me the business side of things through the cemetery and gave me the opportunity to be able to give back to the police department in this aspect. We appreciate it, and we were very happy to work with them,” he said.

Jones added that the tribute holds special meaning for the families of the officers who are memorialized on the wall. The MPD had been keeping names of retired officers since 1940, but the company they previously purchased plaques from went out of business before Anderson stepped up to the plate.

“It means a lot to the officers’ families who we’re recognizing on the plaque and the officers here to recognize the history of the people that have worked for our agency, retired from our agency, and we want to be able to make sure that we have something to remember them by,” he said. “It’ll be in our new building for an extended period of time… Anderson Funeral Home was very generous in coming up with an idea, and we worked together to come up with these two plaques, both to recognize our fallen K9 officers that have passed and also the officers who have retired since 1940.”

As more officers retire and pass on, names will be added to the plaque in the future, but they will always be remembered at the MPD’s new headquarters, which opened in 2019. The plaques can be found off to the right of the main public entrance at 909 S. 2nd Ave.

——

Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com