Banners go up around Aiken County ahead of Memorial Day (2024)

Signs of Memorial Day are popping up around Aiken and North Augusta, with plans in place for a parade in Aiken on May 25, and dozens of local veterans from the present and past are now represented via banners posted around the two cities via the Hometown Heroes program.

The parade, in keeping with tradition, is to be on the Saturday before the actual holiday. This year's procession to begin at 10 a.m. and run through downtown from Park Avenue and Union Street to Laurens Street and north to a reviewing stand on Richland Avenue, ending at Barnwell Avenue.

The parade route will also include some bigger-than-life representations of dozens of local residents from several generations in honor of their military service. Hometown Heroes banners, a project of Aiken County Veterans Council, were put into place this week — dozens in downtown Aiken and downtown North Augusta, and dozens more around the track at Virginia Acres Park.

The parade's grand marshal is to be Savannah River Site retiree Ed Knight, whose background includes eight years in the Navy and 15.5 years in the Coast Guard. He was chosen for the same honor for the 2023 event, but the parade was canceled due to a strong chance of rain.

Knight, a Michigan native, went on eight patrols ("63 days at 200 feet") as a submariner in his Navy years (1964-72), serving as an electronics technician, and his Coast Guard time (1975-90) was focused on small-boat search and rescue in Ohio and Michigan. He was married for 57 years to Navy veteranSally Ellen Knight, the former Sally Ellen Davis, a Texas native whom he met in Michigan as she was preparing for her military service, along with focusing on electronics.

South Carolina's only parade held on Memorial Day itself (May 27) is in Myrtle Beach, and is composed entirely of golf carts "decorated in their patriotic best," rolling along Ocean Boulevard.

The Hometown Heroes program is in place in a variety of communities and is promoted in Aiken County as "a personal and visible way to honor military veterans two weeks prior to Veterans Day and again before Memorial Day through July 4."