Gallery

Check out our photos from our Thank You Veterans special section in Grundy County for 2025.

Private John Martin Steele was a Marine, a Gold Star veteran, and the namesake for the Morris VFW Post 6049. He enlisted Dec. 24, 1941 and served on the USS Lexington, a fleet carrier. His primary responsibility in his battle station was using an anti-aircraft gun.

The Grundy County Marine Corps League is a bit more exclusive than some of the other veterans organizations around Grundy County: Commandant Jeff Alexander said it's the only branch-specific veterans organization.

Tara Phelps turned a youth as an army medic into a career as a nurse with Morris Hospital.

Now an assistant baseball coach and substitute teacher at Minooka High School, Wes Anderson spent nearly 32 years in the US Army

The Veterans Legacy Center at the Morris American Legion Post 294, run by the previously featured Carter Corsello, has uncovered the colorful past of many Grundy County Veterans, but few were as colorful as Robert Huston.

Edith Smith Harrison was already well-accomplished when she decided to become a YMCA canteen volunteer during World War I: At 43, she had already become one of Illinois' first female lawyers, a member of the Smith, Smith and Smith Law Firm.

Matt Baker originally thought he’d be a journalist, but a love for the classrooms of his youth was always in the back of his mind, so he changed his plans at the University of Illinois.

Every student coming through Dwight Elementary School over the last 32 years has been able to attend one of the more creatively planned third or fourth grade classes with Stinnett Gettinger.