SCOOBA — A memorial tribute to the nation’s military veterans stands sentinel outside East Mississippi Community College’s Sullivan-Windham Field thanks to a local business, EMCC employees and students in the college’s welding program.

The memorial features steel medallions that depict the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and the U.S. Coast Guard. Service members held as prisoners of war or missing in action are also honored.

Starkville-based Gulf States Manufacturers, a Nucor Corporation subsidiary, donated the medallions and two Minutemen cutouts, which are woven into the design of the memorial. EMCC landscape worker Joseph Huffman helped with the design and second-year freshmen in EMCC’s Welding & Fabrication Technology program at the Golden Triangle campus assembled all of the pieces.

EMCC’s Michael Duke donated blocks and labor for a retaining wall incorporated into the design and Joe Wood, brother of EMCC Assistant Football Coach Marcus Wood, helped with the project.

Brandon resident Bo Thomasson was among the EMCC Welding & Fabrication Technology students who worked on the memorial.

“Once we got it put up, we realized the meaning it will have for members of our military,” said Thomasson, whose father is a member of the U.S. Air Force. “This is one of the first things people will see when they come to see a football game and we are letting everyone know we appreciate the sacrifice of those who have served our country.”

On several occasions, Gulf States Manufacturers, which builds pre-engineered metal buildings, loaned EMCC’s Golden Triangle campus a similar memorial during the college’s annual “Proud to be an American Day,” EMCC director of Metal Operations Gary Gammill said.

“The last time I went over to Gulf States Manufacturers to borrow it they said, ‘Just keep it,’” Gammill said.

Gulf States Manufacturers also donated the medallions for a display at the Scooba campus a few years back but it had not been assembled because a bottom panel, which reads “In Honor Of All Those Who Served: In Memory of Those Who Gave All,” was missing, Gammill said.

“So, I contacted Joe Wood at Gulf States and he put me in touch with the right people there who got the bottom ribbon completed for us,” Gammill said. “Once we decided to build it, we had to determine where it would be located, what would be the best way to present it and what landscaping needed to be done to accent it. We worked on it for about a week.”

Welding students performed the metal fabrication work at the Golden Triangle campus and used heavy equipment to install the memorial at the Scooba campus.

“It was a great experience for the students,” Gammill said. “They got to not only design and fabricate it here in the lab, but they took it to a remote site and set it up the same way a contractor going to a job site would do.”

Gammill said everyone involved took pride in the project.

“We not only wanted it to represent our welding program and the type of work we do, but we wanted something that looks really nice to honor our veterans,” Gammill said.

EMCC offers a one-year Welding & Fabrication Technology certificate at the Scooba campus and both a certificate program and an Associate of Applied Science degree program at the Golden Triangle campus.