By Keith Gushard
JAMESTOWN — Staff Sgt. David Veverka’s name and memory will live on through higher education scholarships to high school seniors.
“We’re thrilled about it,” said Carol Polley of Jamestown, Veverka’s mother. Two annual $1,000 scholarships will be given to area high school seniors – one to a Jamestown High School student and another to a student in either Crawford or Mercer counties.
“David would be very proud they are there,”she said of the scholarships. “He was big on education. He told family members he hoped to have a scholarship in his name if something ever happened to him.”
Veverka, 25, of West Shenango Township was the first Crawford County fatality in the war in Iraq.
A 1999 graduate of Jamestown High School, he was killed May 6, 2006, after the truck in which he was riding was attacked by a man with a roadside bomb.
Veverka died in a military hospital near Baghdad a few hours after the blast.
Veverka joined the Army after high school graduation as a way to pay for college and he served with the Old Guard in Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery for three years. The Old Guard stands watch over the nationally hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery. As a member of the Old Guard, Veverka participated in funerals at the cemetery.
Upon leaving active service, Veverka joined the Maine Army National Guard and served with the mountain infantry while he attended the University of Maine as a wildlife ecology student. While pursuing his degree, he also taught middle school students about ecology.
Veverka’s National Guard unit was activated in January 2006 and was deployed to Iraq in mid-March.
His unit was providing convoy security in and around Baghdad. On the day he was killed, Veverka, the mission’s commander, pulled a fellow soldier to safety as the blast was detonated. He was awarded the Bronze Star with a V for valor by the Army and his wildlife ecology degree posthumously from the University of Maine. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Ironically, one of the higher education scholarships Veverka was awarded as a high school senior was the Merle Higgins Scholarship, Mrs. Polley said. Higgins was a Jamestown area resident killed while serving in the military in Vietnam.
“He (Veverka) came in the back door yelling ‘I won the Merle Higgins Scholarship,’ ” Mrs. Polley recalled. “He barely even talked about the other awards he had won that year.”
The David Michael Veverka Memorial Scholarship has raised more than $21,000 so far, said Bonnie Benton of the Community Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.
Scholarship applications are due in mid-April, and they will be awarded in May, Ms. Benton said.
For information on how to apply for the scholarships, contact Community Foundation of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, 33 Chestnut St., Sharon, 724-981-5882.
New facility to be dedicated to Veverka
A new $10.5 million maintenance facility for the U.S. Army’s Old Guard at Fort Myer, Va., will be dedicated this spring to Staff Sgt. David Veverka of Jamestown and Cpl. William A. Long of Lilburn, Ga.
Both soldiers were killed while serving in Iraq.
Veverka, a 1999 graduate of Jamestown High School, was killed May 6, 2006, after the vehicle in which he was riding was attacked by a man with a roadside bomb.
Long died June 18, 2005, from injuries he sustained a day earlier, when the vehicle in which he was riding was attacked by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades.
Veverka and Long were members of the Old Guard in Arlington National Cemetery. As a members of the Old Guard, both participated in funerals at the cemetery and both were laid to rest there.
The new building will be dedicated in their honor this Memorial Day, May 28.
