The word that Panola County native David Holmes had been killed in Afghanistan came as the Batesville Exchange Club is preparing to add other names to the downtown war memorial monument.

Recently, perhaps during the Memorial Day Observance in May, it became uncomfortably apparent that five years have elapsed since we learned in 2005 about the deaths in Iraq of Daron Lunsford and Brandon Presley.

At first,  we naively told ourselves that their names would be added at the war’s end. Now we realize that those names are overdue on that monument. The Exchange Club is moving forward with the monument engraver to get them added:

Audrey Daron Lunsford, Brandon Presley and Damian L. Heidelberg (Heidelberg was a native of Quitman who lived in Batesville as a student at Finch-Henry Job Corps Center prior to his enlistment).

And now the name of David A. Holmes Jr.

Also to be carved into the monument are the names of two more men who died in the Vietnam War: William Wallace Ford and William Jewel Davis Jr.

At present those are all of the missing names that the Exchange Club has learned about.

They will join the names of Panola’s losses of World War I:

Larry Alewine, Arthur L. Armes, John Bush, Selma S. Collier, Eldridge Darby, Arthur B. Marshall, Norman E. Scogin, Tige Shankle, Stanley Sanford, Barney M. Weaver, Reed Wilson and Wiley Aberdeen.

Killed in World War II from Panola as listed were Clyde V. Allen, Ely A. Anderson, Frank B. Arnold, Robert M. Barham, Hughie R. Bonner, Rhodes Banner, Oliver Brower, Thomas F. Brown, Woodrow Brown, Russell Chrestman, Willard Crawley, Sylvester Dooley, Edward E. Franklin, Earl A. Glenn, Boothe C. Haltom, Russell Harmon Jr., Page Hartzell, Willie L. Hoskin, Henry L. Houston, Edward D. Jackson, Robert T. Jamison, Alex B. Johnson, Mack Johnson, Wallace Jones, Ernest Kuykendall, Irby Little, Milton P. Martin, Percy D. McCarley Jr., Kenneth D. McCullar, James A. McMinn, William R. McNeese, Maurice Mitchell, A. B. Monroe Jr., Charles F. Morgan, T. D. Nelson, Darrell Riley, Harold Riley, Henry D. Roberts, Charles R. Rodgers, Acey Tapper, Estus A. Tullos, Archie V. Vaughn, John T. Ward, Guy Wardlaw, John Q. West Jr., James D. Westmoreland, Waverly W. Wray, John W. Wright and Paul R. (Budge) Ferguson.

Those killed in the Korean War are listed on the monument are as follows: Fred Dugger, Lindberg Mitcham, William D. Mitchell, Chalmis L. Morris, Carneal Oliphant, James E. Pickett, Charles C. Stewart, Hubert Terry, Doug Wilson, Jerry D. Wilson and Bryant W. Carter.

Those listed on the downtown war memorial monument as having died in the Vietnam War are Ralph V. Dye Jr., Jimmy David Hinton, Clarence Jones, Robert Shelton King Jr., Willie Clyde Kuykendall, Johnny Lee Robinson, Johnnie Earl Smith, Lynn Spann, Lee Curtis Taylor, Hayzell Calvin Turner, Charles Watson Willingham and Melvin Wayne Finch.

Two points:

1. If you know of the name of any other person whose name should be added to the monument, please contact publisher@panolian.com or 663-563-4591 or any member of the Batesville Exchange Club.

2. As we will be reminded during the coming days when Panola County will again mourn and remember, each of the names etched in stone represents a person who once lived and breathed among us. They left behind parents, children, other kinfolks and friends who will always hurt from their loss. The name is there in stone as a reminder to honor and remember the person who bore it.