Memorial Day Ceremony is Sunday

May 25—NEWBERRY — Newberry's annual Memorial Day Ceremony will be held Sunday, May 29 at 4 p.m. at Memorial Park in downtown Newberry.

The service is sponsored by the American Legion, the City of Newberry and Newberry County.

Americans who have died in war and Newberry County veterans who have died in the last year will be remembered. The keynote speaker will be Newberry resident, Tom Pope, a Vietnam veteran.

"We encourage people to come to the service," said Eugene Wilson, commander of American Legion Post 219. "It is important we remember Memorial Day."

"The Memorial Day ceremony is always a nice service," said Henry Brooks, commander of American Legion Post 24. "We'll have the presentation of the colors, music, a remembrance of Americans who've fallen serving our country, the recitation of names of Newberry County veterans who've passed away in the last year and a POW/MIA remembrance."

Pope graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1968. He served as officer in charge of a swift boat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam in 1969-1970 and he was awarded a Bronze Star (with combat "V").

During his year in Vietnam, he was officer in charge of Swift Boat 102, which patrolled the four rivers of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. His boat had five crewmen: gunner's mate, boatswain's mate, quartermaster, engineman, and a radarman. After Vietnam, Pope taught English and coached football at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge, Maryland (1970-71).

Pope served as a member of the South Carolina Senate from 1984-1992. He formerly served as a member of the board of the following institutions or entities: The University of the South, College of Charleston, South Carolina Historical Society and South Carolina Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He served from 2015-2017 as chairman of the South Carolina Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers and past president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates in 2005. In addition to serving on the board of the Newberry Opera House, Pope was chairman of the Newberry County Family YMCA Capital Campaign, which tripled the square-footage of the facility at the YMCA in 2008.

Since 2008, Pope has participated as a volunteer visiting professor in Eastern Europe teaching American civil litigation. He has had two-week stints at law schools in the following countries: Budapest, Hungary; Tirana, Albania; Pristina, Kosovo; Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Mandalay, Myanmar.

Pope is the managing shareholder of the law firm Pope Parker Jenkins in Newberry.