The City Wire Person of the Month: Philip Merry

Editor’s note: The City Wire highlights each month a person in the Fort Smith region. Special recognitions, accomplishments, philanthropic support and input from The City Wire readers are considered when selecting a person to profile.

It was after Labor Day when Philip Merry wandered to the Fort Smith National Cemetery one evening to check on a family gravesite. The sunset sprayed wonderful shades of orange and yellow and pink through the naked trees and onto the sacred ground.

The imagery of that evening was top of mind a few days later when he became curious about the scenery at Arlington National Cemetery. A button on the Arlington Web site about Christmas images piqued Merry’s interest. The pictures of wreaths amidst the snow was beautiful, but the background showed headstones without wreaths.

“I thought, ‘That’s not right. I know Arlington’s big, but that’s not right,’” Merry recalled during a recent interview with The City Wire.

It was around this time Merry was struck with the idea to place wreaths at each of the headstones in the Fort Smith National Cemetery. John Spruyt, director of the Fort Smith cemetery, said it would take about 12,000 wreaths.

“He did not laugh at me in September, but he did chuckle,” Merry said, recalling his first conversation with Spruyt.

Merry, who president of Bowen, Miclette, Britt & Merry of Arkansas, also talked to his friend Cindy Bagby to see if “I had lost my mind. She told me to go for it.”

SUPPORT TEAM
And, long-story-short, Merry was able to find eight other souls who agreed to help him pursue his wreath-placing vision. Within a few days, the effort became known as “Christmas Honors” and was a project of the Education & Quality of Place division of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce. According to the chamber, the effort is designed “to help honor the servicemen and women of our community, who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.”

Merry said Chamber President Paul Harvel was immediately supportive of the plan.

“He got it right away. He really gave us the organizational support to make this happen,” Merry explained.

Kelly Clark, the manager of the Walmart Supercenter at Zero Street in Fort Smith, was a miracle worker, Merry said. Clark’s ability to get the wreaths at the right price and help store and transport the wreaths was the key to the decision to move forward and try to convert an idea into reality in less than eight weeks, Merry said.

The core team managing the effort was Lea Taylor, Sheri Neely, Noah Steffy, Whitney Yoder, Bryan Merry, Claude Legris, Ashley Ellis and Clark. While there was no official headcount, most estimates placed at more than 1,000 the number of volunteers who helped prepare the wreaths, ship them to the cemetery and place them at each headstone. (Link here for a video clip of the prep work, and link here for a report on the planning involved in the effort.)

VOLUNTEER SUPPORT
Thousands of hours of volunteer work paid off on Saturday, Dec. 12. Hundreds of families, veterans and volunteers showed up early that morning — two hours early in some cases — to help place 12,000 wreaths at the headstones in the Fort Smith National Cemetery.

The original schedule was for family members to be able to place wreaths on headstones between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m., with friends and volunteers then able to place wreaths from 9:30 a.m. until the final wreath is placed. But by 10 a.m., all 12,000 wreaths had been placed, said a smiling Yoder, who said the response and volunteer support helped the process run smooth and be more successful than they could have hoped for. (Link here for a video report of the Dec. 12 success.)

BUSINESS, GRASSROOTS SUPPORT
But before Dec. 12, Merry was on a mission to raise at least $60,000 to help pay for the effort. He sent a letter to a group of area business leaders who he hoped would be supportive.

“The next day, I started getting voice mails from these wonderful people saying ‘I’m in.’ That was the common message I’d get, ‘I’m in,’” Merry explained.

The surprise, however, was in the thousands of letters and support from people who heard about the effort through the media.

“A lot of grassroots money started showing up after the media started to push it. … It was then that the $10 and $25 brigade began to show up. … The letters from people all over this great country poured in with money,” Merry explained.

Merry was invited to a Fort Smith senior bowling league event to explain the Christmas Honors project. They liked what they heard.

“It was like I was Jimmy Stewart in a ‘Wonderful Life.’ They got in line and just gave. … The tally was $547 and not one bill was bigger than a $20. It was the darndest thing I had ever seen,” Merry said.

Merry was also impressed by the number of students from area high schools and junior high schools who showed up to help and were very diligent in their work.

“America’s in a slump, but her core is very solid,” Merry said.

“Those kids got right in there and worked. And to see them work next to one of our elderly citizens who experienced that (World War II) history …” Merry said, with emotion completing his point.

COMMUNITY EMBRACE
The effort is just a few dollars short of $60,000. Jeff Beauchamp, president of Bedford Camera & Video, recently volunteered company time and resources to produce montage prints available for $5 and $10 donations. Merry said that generosity will help beat the $60,000 goal and give the project a start on future financial support.

Planning for the 2010 Christmas Honors will begin in late January, Merry said, with the group focused on “searching for the best way for the project to mature” in future years.

Merry said reflection causes him to be amazed at how nine different people (the core team) who really didn’t know each other came together to make this happen “without any hitches.”

His biggest pride is in how the community coalesced behind the effort to honor Veterans.

“I recently had the chance to talk to people from other parts of the country and world about what we did and they’d say, ‘You did what?’ They’d be just incredulous,” Merry said. “Fort Smith has done something that people in big towns just can’t fathom. The beauty of this thing is that it was grassroots and the community embraced it.”