Setbacks have pushed back the completion date of the Leadership Santa Rosa Class 29 project a few more months, but progress is being made.
Earlier this week, Leadership Class 29 spokesman Rich Aloy announced that the artist, Randy New, has progressed the sculpture to the “Lost Wax” phase of construction at a foundry in Fairhope, Ala.
“We are looking at a few more months until project completion,” Aloy said. “Our goal all along has been to deliver a memorial representative of those who sacrificed their lives in service to our nation.”
The leadership class proposed the project idea last year to honor the nation’s military and to also pay tribute to the 11 servicemen who perished in a Blackhawk helicopter training exercise in the Santa Rosa Sound last March that made national headlines.
The class has already erected the base that the statue will sit on in Navarre Park. They have also constructed a fence around the base.
Back in March, the class erected a temporary memorial for the gold star family members of the servicemen who died in the training exercise. They also revealed to the public the renderings of the memorial.
Each of the family members was given a gold star from the mock memorial as part of a tribute to their late servicemember.
The class project was expected to wrap up by the one-year anniversary of the helicopter crash, but was pushed back several months due to unforeseen circumstances.
