2nd annual Veterans Day Parade has over 1,000 participants

The parade ended at the Flagler County Veterans Day Ceremony where U.S. Marine Corps veteran was Jeffrey Kingdon named the Flagler County 2024 Veteran of the Year.

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Flagler County's second annual Veterans Day Parade had over 1,000 participants this year, Bunnell Police Chief and parade organizer David Brannon said. 

"I think there's a lot of support for the veteran community in Flagler County," Brannon said. "I'm elated its [the parade] happened."

The parade and ceremony were organized and held jointly this year and, Brannon said, there was a focus to make the parade a Flagler County event and not just specific to Bunnell. The parade began at 10 a.m. at the Historic Flagler County Courthouse building on East Moody Boulevard and then participants marched along Moody to the Flagler County Government Services Building where the annual Veterans Day Ceremony was held. 

Officers from the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, the Flagler Beach Police Department and the Florida Highway Patrol were all involved in the parade in some way, with some participating in the parade and others contributing to safety measures alongside the Bunnell Police Department, Brannon said. 

Several of the local elected officials leading the ceremony — including Flagler County's Board of County Commissioners and parade grand marshall Randall Stapleford, a Florida Inland Navigation District commissioner — arrived with the parade. 

"When you wear a military uniform, you wear the colors of red, white and blue, no other color," Stapleford said. "And as a veteran, when you no longer wear that uniform, you still wear those colors of red, white and blue."

Flagler County Veteran Services Officer David Lydon led the group through the ceremony.

Veterans Day, Lydon said, is all about honoring the men and women who took an oath to serve their country. Flagler County's 2024 Veteran of the Year is Jeffrey Kingdon, a United States Marine Corps veteran. 

Kingdon served in the Marine Corps as a rifleman from 1966 to 1969 and is a veteran of the Vietnam War. In recent years, Kingdon has used a combination of his woodworking and technology skills to create wooden, engraved plaques that he gives out to organizations and people who spend their time serving others, Lydon said.

Kingdon, he said, spends his time thinking about others.

"Today, he's donated thousands of plaques thanking veterans, first responders and fellow Americans who perform selfless deeds for people they don't even know," Lydon said. 

One of Kingdon's goals is to give a plaque to all of Flagler County's World War II veterans to thank them for their service. Kingdon said he does this in part for his own father, who served in WWII. 

So far, he said, he's managed to hand out 14 plaques to local WWII veterans and is working on his 15th.

"Every time I talk to a World War II veteran, I'm basically talking to my dad, which is kind of neat," Kingdon said. "But I do it for veterans because I like doing things for other people. It gives me a purpose."

As a Vietnam War veteran, Kingdon said he is from an era where veterans weren't welcomed home as heroes: The plaques are his way of showing his own appreciation. 

Flagler County Commission Chair Andy Dance had just one message for Flagler's veterans: "thank you."

"Today, we thank, celebrate and honor Americans and Flagler County's veterans," Dance said, "for their dedication, patriotism, love of country and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good."

 

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