Ladies with the Nevada Silver Tappers and Ms. Senior Golden Years, along with area veterans, spent Saturday morning at the Chief Tecopa Cemetery on East Street in Pahrump, wandering through the sprawling graveyard picking out the stones of former military members who were buried at the site. They adorned their final resting places with Christmas wreaths.
Although not an official part of the Wreaths Across America program, the effort coincided with National Wreaths Across America Day — an annual event where the graves of veterans are adorned at Arlington National Cemetery and more than 2,500 locations in every state and abroad.
“Several of the Tappers have veterans in their families,” Silver Tapper and Ms. Senior Golden Year member Vicki Gladsjo said. “We learned about Wreaths Across America but our cemetery was not participating. We chose this project to honor all the veterans in our town.”
This marks the second year for the Silver Tapper’s wreath initiative, which got its start in 2020 thanks to an infusion of funds that came as a result of the Tappers being featured on a Facebook video series.
Mike Rowe, most famously known for his role on the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” hosts the Facebook series “Returning the Favor.” He visited Pahrump in early 2020 to film the Tappers in all their philanthropic glory. At the culmination of the filming, Rowe presented the group’s founder, B.J. Hetrick-Irwin, with a check for $25,000.
For the 2020 Christmas season, the Tappers used a portion of that money to purchase their first 250 wreaths, which they laid upon the graves of those who had served.
The Silver Tappers returned to the cemetery this past Saturday to again place wreaths.
It’s an act the Tappers fully intend to continuing doing each and every year into the future, Gladsjo said.
Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com.