Hometown Heroes banners line the streets in downtown Fortville, honoring veterans with ties to the town.
By Shelley Swift | Daily Reporter
FORTVILLE — The Hometown Heroes banners lining the streets in downtown Fortville are sure to garner some extra attention over the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.
The patriotic display is a homegrown effort, started in 2023 by four Fortville residents who wished to pay tribute to veterans with ties to the town. New Palestine has a similar banner program.
This marks the third year for the Fortville banners, which are hung on lampposts throughout town from Memorial Day through Veterans Day each year.
The Hometown Heroes program was initiated by Fortville resident Cindy Carmack, who formed a committee along with Garen Garvin-Waters, Larry Cannaday and Jim Anderson.
Waters credits Carmack for gaining town council approval and overseeing the program the first two years.
“Special recognition should go to the Fortville town workers who loyally and graciously install the banners and take them down at the end of the season,” said Waters, who said each banner is carefully hand-cleaned before being stored away for the winter.
Due to overwhelming support, the program grew bigger than just one person could handle, so the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post got involved and took over managing the Hometown Heroes banners this past spring.
“I think it’s a great way to honor veterans and to keep their memory alive,” said Tom Bunnell, a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army and junior vice commander of Fortville’s VFW Post 6904.
The Fortville-area native is proud to see his grandfather’s and great-uncle’s faces on banners hanging alongside his own banner, which was purchased by his wife.
Most veterans don’t seek the recognition of having their faces on display, he said, but family members often take pride and comfort in recognizing their loved ones who have served.
For now, most of the banners line Broadway and Main streets downtown.
Thanks to the installation of more decorative black lampposts along Broadway and South Maple streets, an additional 45 spots are available.
Bunnell said the post plans to reopen applications for new banners from early November through late January, with plans of having a new batch installed by next Memorial Day.
The cost to purchase a banner in someone’s honor is $140, which includes a three-year guarantee against damage.
Photos by Shelley Swift | Daily Reporter
When a windstorm blew through town June 19, displacing seven of the banners, all of them were eventually recovered, and those that needed it were repaired before being rehung.
While the Fortville banner program started out honoring military veterans with ties to the town, Bunnell said it is being expanded to honor police officers and firefighters as well.
Waters, 83, who was part of Fortville’s original Hometown Heroes planning committee, said she wanted to get involved to honor the fathers of the friends she grew up with, men who served in World War II.
She said she’ll never forget a story she heard while sitting in an eighth-grade classroom in Fortville, when a classmate told a story about when his dad was serving in the European theater during the war.
“He and his bunkmate were under fire — a tremendous battle was going on — and they looked at each other and one of them said, ‘If we get out of this alive, let’s be neighbors,’ and that’s indeed what they did,” Waters said.
“They did get out of the bunker and found rental homes in Fortville, and they lived next to each other most of their lives. That’s one of the stories that always stayed with me,” she said.
Playing a small part in creating a program that honors Fortville’s Hometown Heroes is an honor, said Waters, who vividly remembers her own wartime experience as a child. She was just 3 years old when she heard sirens blaring while hiding in a closet during a World War II blackout, on the St. Louis air base where her family lived.
“It’s such an honor to be able to recognize and celebrate (those who served),” she said. “The response we’ve gotten from people who have stood in front of the banner of their father or grandfather and actually have wept — it’s been a very emotional and fulfilling experience.”
Waters has lived all over the country, but has returned home to the town of Fortville where she was raised.
Driving through town and seeing the Hometown Heroes banners fills her with gratitude for the heroes pictured on each one.
“When you drive through and see all the banners up, it gives the town a Hallmark movie town feeling … seeing the warmth and the celebration of these heroes and remembering their service,” she said.
It’s that same Hallmark quality that brought her family to town in 1948, she said.
“We had moved from St. Louis to Indianapolis, and my dad drove down the street (in Fortville) and came home and told my mother, ‘I just drove through the most beautiful town I have ever seen,’” she recalled.
“It was autumn 1948, and there were the old bricks on Main Street, and the elm trees arched over the street. It made quite an impression,” she said.