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Bonner Springs Cemetery's new entrance was finished just in time for the Memorial Day services Monday.

Prior to the regular Memorial Day celebrations at the cemetery, city officials cut the ribbon for the new stone pillars, spanned by an iron sign, on either side of the road leading in and out of the graveyard.

Mayor Clausie Smith said at the ceremony's beginning that it was a "fitting and proper" and a "great way : to remember those who gave so much."

Despite the gray skies and a light rain, about 60 people attended the ceremony at the cemetery's Soldiers Circle.

Former Mayor and State Sen. Al Ramirez gave the invocation, followed by the presentation of the colors by members of the Olsen-McGraw-Thompson-Goins Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6401.

Bonner Springs High School class of 2008 graduate Ethan Jenkins sang the National Anthem, before VFW members fired a 21-gun salute.

Larry Berg and his son Brian played "Taps," and a check was presented from the city to the VFW post.

Just 20 hours previous and about four and a half miles to the east, another Memorial Day service was held at Edwardsville Cemetery.

The event, on a sultry Sunday afternoon, attracted about 20 people. Members of the VFW Post 6401 presented the colors at this event as well, and James Eickhoff played "Taps."

Debbie Shaw and her grandchildren Joshua, 9, Caleb, 5, Kenny, 2, and Victoria Fisher, 4, placed a memorial wreath on the grave of Shaw's nephew, Billy Willis. Willis died of a heart attack last September at the age of 22.

An Army war veteran, Willis had been responsible for a recent addition to the cemetery the previous July. Months before "he had just been up to put flags for the Fourth of July," Shaw said. Shaw's father was Bill Kuhn, former mayor of Edwardsville and chair of the cemetery committee, and "the grandkids always helped him" with work on the cemetery, she said.

Kuhn served in World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and died in 2001.

The Rev. Kim Dominic of Edwardsville United Methodist Church, read from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, and Ola Howerton lead the attendees in singing "God Bless America."

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