‘Best find of the day’
Photos courtesy of Myra Blackburn
U.S. Army Air Corpsman Ralph F. Meadows (far left). Myra Blackburn holds the dog tag lost by her father decades ago.
A metal detecting club’s discovery – a World War II dog tag – is united with the soldier’s daughter, Myra Blackburn of Oak Ridge by CHRIS BURRITT OAK RIDGE – Ralph F. Meadows was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps at the end of World War II. Afterward, he and his wife, Reggie, moved from South Carolina to his hometown of Oak Ridge with their 3-month-old daughter, Myra. Three-quarters of a century later, Myra Blackburn has reclaimed her father’s Army dog tag, lost during the 13 years the family lived in a small white house and farmed property on what’s now Scoggins Road, behind the Oak Ridge Fire Department. “I take it out and look at it,” Blackburn said in an interview earlier this week. Oak Ridge Town Clerk Sandra Smith gave the sliver of metal with short chain to Blackburn before the Town Council’s meeting May 6. A metal detecting club found the tag last summer and gave it to
Smith, who informed Blackburn of the discovery. The two delayed getting together until recently, due to COVID-19 concerns. Holding the tag during the meeting, Blackburn thanked the council for buying and developing her childhood home place as an extension of Town Park. She’s also pleased that a veterans’ site is going to be built on the property. The recent naming of the two projects – Heritage Farm Park and Veterans Honor Green – carries
special meaning for Blackburn because they recall her past as a farm girl and growing up as the daughter of a soldier. Her father died 50 years ago, and her mother passed away in 2016. Blackburn and her husband, Gary, live on N.C. 150, just a few blocks east of Oak Ridge Military Academy. She wasn’t aware her father had lost his dog tag. Inscribed with his name and military identification number, in the dirt for decades until its NEitWlayLburied o c a t ion Short, a member of the discovery last July by Floyd
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