Sugar Creek VFW Post 3976

 From The Inter-City News: Thursday, June 29, 1967

    On January 12, 1945, a charter was issued to the Sooter-Clemens Post No. 3976, Veterans of Foreign Wars, VFW, of the United States,  of Sugar Creek Missouri.  The Ladies Auxilliary was chartered May 11, 1945.  The post had 77 charter members and the Aux. 38 members.

   Initiation and installation of officers took place in the Sugar Creek school, now used for defense purposes.

   The post was named for Cecil Sooter and Frank Clemens, the first men from Sugar Creek to lose their lives in WWII; Cecil, as a Navy pilot in Panama, on a training flight, and Frank soon after D-Day, with the Army in France.  The name was changed to the Sugar Creek Memorial Post in 1966.

   Herbert Killion, was the first Post Commander, and his wife, Alice Killion, the first Auxiliary president.  A handful of veterans from WWII, including Mr. Killion, Walter P. Kenney, William G. Linnell, Tom Sooter, William Buford, William Buford, Sr., Lloyd Gibbons, William T. Krudop, Ferdinand J. Fischl, and Earl Evinger, organized the post while many of the other charter members were still on active duty.

   In 1946 when Walter Kenney was commander, the Veteran's Memorial was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, and May 30, 1958, a plaque on the new swimming pool was dedicated to the memory of our local veterans.

   Each year at 11 o'clock May 30, VFW Memorial services are held at this monument with the whole community participating.  In the fall of 1961 a disastrous fire destroyed the VFW hall on the second floor of what is now Sterling Hall, 514 N Sterling, Sugar Creek, and nearly took the lives of Mr. and Mrs. William Linnell in their adjacent apartment (they were saved by their neighbor, Mike A. Benkovich). Practically all the property of the post and Auxiliary was destroyed, and for the next few years the organization suffered a setback and many of the community activities were curtailed.

A few local members continued to function and in 1962 the post and aux made a fresh start and continues to grow and prosper and carryout its VFW community service projects in Sugar Creek.  Mrs. Charlotte Kenney and Mrs. Patricia Kenney Train are the only charter members of the Auxiliary holding office in the Auxiliary.