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It's a Saratoga tradition that's been around for more than 80 years, thanks to the efforts of the Foothill Club. And it won't be much different in 2005 than it was back in the 1920s when it all began.
The annual Memorial Day celebration in downtown Saratoga will begin at 9:30 a.m. on May 30 with the placing of a wreath at the Memorial Arch in Blaney Plaza at Highway 9 and Big Basin Way. The crowd, led by the Saratoga High School marching band, will then walk up to Oak Street and to the Madronia Cemetery.
Lt. Col. Angela Alexander, commander of the logistics readiness squadron, 129th Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard, Moffett Field Federal Airfield, is guest speaker at the 10 a.m. ceremony.
"I don't believe we've had a woman speaker for a long time," Foothill Club member Diane Stoiber, the event's chairwoman, said. "She is one of the people responsible for sending out shipments to Iraq."
"An a cappella choir will also perform," said the Foothill Club's Ann Monroe, the publicity chairwoman for the Memorial Day service.
Stoiber said she expects hundreds of people to show up for the event. "We'll also have 150 band members and 75 members from the choir," she said.
Brownies and Scouts taking part in the event will place laurel boughs and flags on the graves of the more than 800 veterans buried at Madronia.
Helen Francis, another Foothill Club member, usually makes the laurel wreaths that are placed at the Memorial Arch.
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Archive photograph