Irons, Stolley to be honored for military service on Veterans Day

By Mike Weland

The 2025 Boundary County Veterans Day Program begins at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, November 11, commemorating the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the Year of Our Lord 1918 and expressing gratitude for the sacrifice of the approximately one percent of citizens who raise their right hand and swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States for the singular privilege of donning a uniform of the United States armed forces.

All Boundary County veterans are invited to the Boundary County Fairgrounds at Memorial Hall in Bonners Ferry, and all county residents are welcome to take part in honoring our local warriors, our veterans — whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve — each of whom, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including their life.

As the clock ticks toward 11 a.m. veterans will be welcomed, colors presented. The Bonners Ferry High School Choir will lead in singing the National Anthem, Pastor Len Pine will give the invocation.

And at 11 a.m., the clear peal of a bell will ring 21 times, commemorating the moment the guns of World War I fell silent, have wreaked death and destruction since July 28, 1914.

Afterwards, the high school choir will perform a medley of U.S. armed forces songs and Boundary County Sheriff Travis Stolley, a Marine Corps staff sergeant who saw combat in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, will deliver this year’s Veteran’s Day speech.

And then a high point. For the 14th consecutive year, the beautiful and talented Margaret Pyette will bestow two more of her exquisite and meaningful veteran’s quilts, 34 made to date, to two deserving Boundary County veterans.

In the past, her quilts went to county’s oldest veterans, including last year’s recipient, Navy veteran Eddie Belakiewicz, who celebrated his 100th circuit of Earth at the Restorium October 25.

The honor of receiving this year’s first Valor quilt goes to a humble gentleman who has long stood as a community pillar, a veteran truly epitomizing America’s greatest generation, even though he served in a later war than normally attributed to those recognized for that accolade.

Ken Irons was born March 4, 1934, in Glenns Ferry, Idaho, to Ernest and Mary Irons. In 1939, the family was selected to participate in the Farm Security Administration Resettlement Program.

Ernest and Mary moved to Boundary County with sons Ernest Jr., Kenneth and Edgar and set stakes in District 15. In the spring of 1940, they started their own farm in the Fitzpatrick District out Cow Creek Road and soon acquired a new Farmall M tractor.

Ken, now 91, graduated Bonners Ferry High School in 1953, enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Korea in the waning days of the conflict.

Obtaining an honorable discharge, Ken used his GI Bill to enroll at Oregon Technological Institute, Klamath Falls. In addition to a degree in automotive tune-up and electrical, Ken found the half of him he’d been missing. On June 29, 1963, he and Donna Kessi were wed, and they moved back to Bonners Ferry and District 15 in 1965 to farm and serve their community. The couple still make their home in the Cow Creek neighborhood.

The second 2025 quilt will be presented to Sheriff Travis Stolley, SSG, USMC.

Following Margaret’s presentation, the Bonners Ferry High School Choir will again assemble to perform the timeless Simon & Garfunkel classic, “Homeward Bound” and Len Pine will give the closing prayer.

Lunch for veterans and their families by Tartan and Thistle will follow in the Fairgrounds Memorial Hall.