The weather-delayed Veterans Celebration at the Veterans Memorial Saturday was a nice event.

From the Purcell High School Choir performing to the Missing Man ceremony, the event to dedicate a new stone full of names of McClain County vets was on cue.

Lee Shilling, himself a veteran,  served as Master of Ceremonies and John Mantooth was the guest speaker.

Purcell’s Honor Guard presented the colors and Mayor Graham Fishburn made brief remarks.

Veterans stood during the Armed Forces Medley when their song for their particular branch was played.

jdm

The two people in Purcell that I’ve known the longest are Don Boyer and Tony DiRienzo.

Tony and I started school at OU at the same time.

He, as everyone knows, was the place kicker for the Sooners, and a dang fine one.

When he got his first uniform he told head coach Barry Switzer, “Hey coach you spelled my name wrong.”

Tony said Switzer’s response was, “If you make All-Conference we’ll spell it correctly.”

DiRienzo did just that and got a jersey with his name correctly spelled.

DiRienzo finished second in scoring to All-American Joe Washington in both 1974 and 1975.

In 1974 he set a then school record for kicking 39 extra point attempts without a miss. He also has the longest field goal in school history, a 60-yarder against Kansas State in 1973.

Boyer was the press box elevator operator at Memorial Stadium and, since it was part of my job to set up the press box on Fridays before home games and work in the press box on Saturdays, I had the opportunity to see Boyer quite often.

Both of those guys are top shelf people as well.

They always say, “old friends are the best friends.”