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Good deeds keep growing
RHETT MORGAN World Staff Writer
03/11/2006
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A13 of News
Blue Star Mothers grants wish to WWII
veteran
CLAREMORE -- When he isn't riding a stationary bicycle
or telling whoppers with his buddies in the "bullpen,"
Bob Shadwick likes to tend to the potted plants and
flowers at the Oklahoma Veterans Center.
He now flexes that green thumb even more, thanks to the
Blue Star Mothers.
A World War II veteran, Shadwick received gardening
tools and gloves, a cactus and flowers Thursday as part
of the organization's "Wish Upon a Blue Star" program,
which salutes veterans by granting them special
requests.
"Oh, boy! That's what I need right there," Shadwick,
79, said upon receiving his gifts. "I sure appreciate
it."
Wish Upon a Blue Star is a cooperative effort between
the Tulsa-based chapter of the Blue Star Mothers and
the Oklahoma Veterans Center in Claremore.
Funded entirely by donations, the program is dedicated
to fulfilling the wishes of select veterans, said
Denise Patterson, veterans affairs coordinator for the
Tulsa-based Blue Star Mothers Chapter One.
Helen Spray, a social worker for the Oklahoma Veterans
Center, said the veterans "just feel as though they are
being acknowledged for what they've done for their
country."
"People from this age bracket, . . . they kind of feel
forgotten sometimes," she said. "But this helps them
not to feel forgotten."
Besides a watering can, plastic toolbox, flower seeds
and gardening implements, Shadwick, of Dewey, also
received a gift certificate for steak and gravy-covered
fries from Murphy's Steak House in Bartlesville.
Then an Army staff sergeant, Shadwick served from 1944
to 1945 as an engineer in the South Pacific and the
Philippines.
At the Veterans Center, he volunteers to wheel
residents around in their chairs and exercises several
times daily on the stationary bike.
"Whenever I get to thinking about home, I go down and
work out," he said. ". . . I try to keep in good
shape."
As for his plant life, Shadwick usually makes the
rounds with his watering can after breakfast.
"My wife was into her flowers," said Shadwick, whose
partner was killed in an automobile crash in 1970. "She
got me into it."
Blue Star Mothers tailored its program after a similar
one at the New Mexico Veterans Hospital.
Chapter One President Gaye Beatt and Treasurer Barbara
Porter had gone to Albuquerque last spring to attend a
Blue Star Mothers workshop.
The idea piqued the interest of Patterson, who spent
the summer of 1968 as a "candy striper," or volunteer,
at the New Mexico hospital.
She ran with the proposal, generating volunteer
involvement through her coordinator job, and the
program took off.
The program has granted the requests of four veterans
-- including Shadwick -- since the fall.
One veteran who had been estranged from his family for
20 years was reunited with his kin.
Another man who was struggling with depression was
presented with a guitar.
The most involved request included a limousine trip to
the Cherokee Casino and tickets to a Washington
Redskins game in the nation's capital.
Two of the veterans died within a couple of weeks after
their wishes were granted, Patterson said.
"Our timing has been really, really impeccable we
think," she said. "We're so pleased with the program.
It's been a raving success."
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