Maine State Society: Hidden Gem of D.C.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2002–A 48-foot Blue Bird tracker-trailer will pull in to Arlington National Cemetery on this Wednesday, loaded with nearly 4,000 balsam fir wreaths donated to the Maine State Society.
Veterans, friends and family will gather together with the society for the tenth year to place wreaths donated by Worcester Wreaths in Herrington at the gravesites throughout the cemetery to remember those who have served the country in different ways.
“I like the fact that we place the wreaths in an area that not a lot of people often visit,” said Joan Dollarhite, president of the Maine State Society. “It’s one if my favorite activities.”
This year wreaths will be placed on the gravesites of sailors, marines and the officers of the USS Maine; the Pentagon victims; Admiral Perry, discoverer of the North Pole; Evander E. Andrews of Solon, the first serviceman to die in Operation Enduring Freedom’s strike against terrorism; and the late Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie, according to Barbara Owens, spokeswoman for Arlington National Cemetery.
Merrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreaths, began the event in 1993 after realizing he had an overstock of wreaths.
“I had all these wreaths that I wasn’t going to sell and I’m pretty successful in the wreath business,” Worcester said. “I started thinking about Arlington. This may sound trite, but we owe those people an awful lot.”
Worcester first visited the cemetery when he was 12, after winning a subscription contest when he worked as a paperboy for the Bangor Daily News.
U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office arranged the event with the cemetery, after Worcester pitched the idea. He was then put in contact with the Maine State Society, which rounded up the volunteers.
While the event started that year with only 25 volunteers on a cold, snow filled day, it has grown drastically, with approximately 83 to 85 people placing wreaths in 2001, according to past president of MSS, Lou Pearson.
The only question was how to get so many wreaths down to Arlington.
Worcester placed a call to his old friend James Prout, owner of the Blue Bird Ranch Inc. trucking company, and asked for help delivering the wreaths. Prout offered one of his trucks to transport the wreaths. For the past ten years, the company has continued to donate a truck, driver and transportation costs to the event-a price tag which adds up to about $2,000, according to Blue Bird Ranch Inc.
Most of the time, one can find staffers from the offices of the Maine delegates placing wreaths next to members of MSS. Some times one can even find members of local VFW units helping out.
“You’d be surprised how everyone has a connection to Maine,” Dollarhite said. MSS has 1,100 members in 26 states and five foreign countries.
The Superintendent of the cemetery selects a different section very year, so “all graves will have been decorated at one point or another, which assures that everyone is paid tribute to,” Pearson said.
While most visits to Arlington are either for visiting loved ones or exploring the cemetery as a tourist, this event is “one of a kind,” according to Owens.
Heads of state, diplomats, veteran’s groups and school children usually take part in other wreath layings around the cemetery.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
