The town of Fieldale, VA is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There is no question that celebrating the past is admirable.

To many of us the Fieldale Community Center is the real monument in Fieldale. Other than the recently restored Shell Station, this imposing building is surely the grandest structure in the village. Look around. Look at our beloved old Fieldale High School building needing paint, with broken window glass and missing shingles. Next door the Community Center with its shining white trim, still stands like a beacon. It was built in 1939 by Marshall Field & Co. Around 1949 Marshall Field's knitting complex reorganized as Fieldcrest and in the 1950s Fieldcrest, still community driven, added two swimming pools to the Community Center complex.

Today the Community Center has no corporate sponsor, no Fieldcrest. It receives no Harvest Foundation funds though it would welcome such. Today it depends on the resourcefulness of a very small group of people. I don't even know all their names although Bill Adkins has led their efforts for years. The Community Center is a monument shouldered by these few who refuse to quit.

Andy Rooney, at the end of his segment on the D-Day Invasion said,

"If you think the world is selfish and rotten go to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. See what one group of people did for another on D-day, June 6, 1944."

When I heard this I thought of the great group that labors to keep the Fieldale Community Center viable for another generation. There are selfish and rotten things in Henry County but this group is not. They deserve our praise. They deserve our support.