The Bowling Green Memorial Day Observation Committee is planning Memorial Day Services on Monday, May 26. Wood County Common Pleas Judge Matthew Reger will deliver the keynote address at the Memorial Day Service at Oak Grove Cemetery and at Wood County Memory Gardens Cemetery.
The National Anthem will be performed by the Bowling Green High School Band. Vocalist Evvie Van Vorhis will sing “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful.” Father Tom McQuillen, pastor of St. Aloysius Catholic Church, will serve as chaplain.
Bowling Green Mayor Michael Aspacher will present Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Logan’s Orders will be presented by veteran Steve Benner. Herbert Dettmer will recite “May and a Mother Wept.”
The Memorial Day Service will be held at Oak Grove Cemetery starting at 10:30 a.m., following the Memorial Day Parade through Bowling Green. The parade steps off at 10 a.m.
The service at Wood County Memory Gardens Cemetery on Liberty Hi Road will be at 1 p.m.
Veterans and patriotic units are invited to join in the parade.
In case of inclement weather, the program will be held in the Veterans Memorial Building in Bowling Green City Park at 10:30 a.m.
Judge Matthew Reger has been a Common Pleas Judge in Wood County since Jan. 1, 2017. In 1996 he began working in the Bowling Green Municipal Prosecutor’s Office, beginning a career that lasted 20 years. He served as the chief municipal prosecutor from 2000 – 2016.
Reger had a brief interlude, from 2006 through 2007, when he lived in the Republic of Georgia as a criminal law specialist through the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. While in Georgia, Reger trained attorneys in trial advocacy skills and worked with parliament on a new criminal procedure code adopting western adversarial processes.
Following his return to the U.S., in addition to resuming his job as Bowling Green Municipal Prosecutor, he took up the task of international election monitoring on an intermittent basis, having the opportunity to monitor elections in Moldova, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Reger founded Community Christian Legal Services in 2008, which provided free legal services to those in need. He is also an instructor at Bowling Green State University, which he began in 2008, teaching several different classes dealing with law and courts.
