Memorial Day parade in Aiken set for May 28

May 14—One of Aiken County's most "seasoned" veterans will be the grand marshal in this year's Memorial Day parade, set for 10 a.m. May 28 in downtown Aiken.

That role will go to Army veteran Hal Peck, 99, a Houndslake resident who served in the 226th Signal Corps, and arrived on a Normandy beach June 17, 11 days after the Allied invasion known largely to history as D-Day.

The parade, in keeping with tradition, will begin near the Aiken Visitors Center and Train Museum (406 Park Avenue S.E.) and proceed west on Park Avenue, turn north onto Laurens Street and end at Edgefield Avenue, just past Trinity on Laurens.

Peck's compatriot in the parade — a few decades younger — is Army veteran Wanda L. Dicks, a South Aiken High School graduate chosen as the parade's first lady. Dicks, now a community outreach advocate with Welvista, is known to many through her time with ForcesUnited (formerly known as the Augusta Warrior Project).

Dicks, who has a bachelor's degree in social work from Augusta State University, now focuses on helping provide prescription medicine for uninsured South Carolina residents. Her background includes having served in Iraq, in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, both via the 122nd Engineer Battalion. Her years of service ran from 1983 to 2008.

Peck, a widower, lives by himself (with help from neighbors and family), having resided in Aiken since 1992, when he and his wife, the former Gwen Bailie, settled down. He was a standout athlete in both basketball and baseball as a young man, and wound up making a living as an insurance salesman and executive, starting with the St. Joe Valley Insurance Company, and helping physicians defend themselves against lawsuits.

Peck and Dicks are on track to have hundreds of neighbors in the entourage, including such organizations as the Aiken County Democratic Party, Cedar Creek Ladies Club, Marine Corps League, Town Creek Christian Academy, Daughters of the American Revolution, Friends of the Animal Shelter and Knights of Columbus. One of the staples in the annual event is a horse-drawn caisson from Shellhouse Funeral Home, with Robert Shellhouse Jr. and Graham Hall both aboard.

Military veterans planning to participate include Air Force veteran Dick Chelchowski, who was on active duty from 1968 to 1988, including time with his father (the late Walter Chelchowski) in Vietnam. Chelchowski is currently attempting to restore a 1942 Coast Guard Jeep for use in the parade.

The list of participating organizations also include such names as Honda Cars of Aiken, Filipino-American Association of Greater Aiken, Aiken County Republican Party, Disabled American Veterans, Silver Bluff Volunteer Fire Department and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The holiday itself, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, dates back at least to the 1860s. The VA website notes, "Today, cities in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1866. Both Macon and Columbus, Georgia, claim the title, as well as Richmond, Virginia. The village of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claims it began there two years earlier. A stone in a Carbondale, Illinois, cemetery carries the statement that the first Decoration Day ceremony took place there on April 29, 1866."