About 400 people were served at the fifth annual Nemaha County Veterans Pancake Feed on Saturday morning, July 3, at the 4-H Building on the Nemaha County Fairgrounds.

In addition, about 40 meals were taken to Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville for personnel who were unable to attend due to being on duty that morning.
Project Chairman Monty Lovelace with the Calvary Christian Center-Assembly of God said purpose of the recognition was to bring the public out to honor veterans, fire fighters, police officers and emergency medical services workers. In addition, the goal is for the event to become increasingly popular and give the community of Auburn and Nemaha County an ongoing activity to connect with during the Fourth of July Holiday weekend.

“The crowd keeps getting larger and more enthusiastic each year. We have 12 notebook pages with names of people who signed up at the event. Our core group of workers came from the Calvary Christian Center. This group was in charge of set up and running the Nemaha County Veterans Pancake Feed. They really work well together,” Lovelace commented.
Lovelace said owner Ralph Darling of Darling’s Cafe donated all of the eggs and sausage consumed that morning. “Ralph has always been good to help with this event and I would like to encourage people to thank him by patronizing his restaurant,” the chairman said.
Providing patriotic and gospel music were members of the Gospel Express from Blue Springs, Mo. The group comprised of Steve Perry, Alan Burch, Jim Belshe and Buell Stewart went by the name “Auburn Express” for that day. Lovelace joined in to sing a couple of songs shortly before the event’s end.   
Lovelace said the freewill donation raised nearly $2,000 to benefit the Nemaha County Veterans Memorial. The memorial will be located at the west side and south of the entrance to Legion Memorial Park, Auburn.  It will honor the men and women who have served the United States in the military.
Lovelace said approximately $60,000 has been raised towards the project and the committee in charge continues to push towards surpassing a fund-raising goal of $85,000. He said the group would like to collect closer to $100,000 when all is said and done. Contributions are encouraged soon to enable the committee to complete fund-raising efforts by Dec. 31, 2010, Lovelace said.
Provided contributions come in at the current projected pace, the plan is to finalize details by January of next year and hopefully begin construction by next spring.
Also helping to sponsor the activity were Nemaha Against Drug & Alcohol Abuse, Auburn Agency, German Mutual Association of Nebraska, Bernard Real Estate, River Valley Memorials, Engles Agency, Wheeler Motels and a number of local residents.