More than 400 riders joined in the Arkansas Fallen Heroes Memorial Motorcycle Ride as it headed from Little Rock to Toad Suck Park near Conway. When riders arrived, they were able to view the traveling Arkansas Fallen Heroes Memorial Flag Field set up near the Arkansas River. With American flags waving in the wind, riders, family members and other visitors took time to view the stories and many of the faces of those who had fallen since Sept. 11, 2001.

Phil Landry of Hot Springs, who participated in the ride, said it blessed him and touched his heart.

“To see people standing on the side of the road crying and waving flags, if it doesn’t touch you, something must be wrong with you,” Landry said. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Chuck and Glenda Gregory of Birdtown participated in the ride for the first time. The couple was walking through the flag field reading the stories of the fallen soldiers. 

Chuck Gregory said it was hard to put the feelings of riding in the motorcycle ride into words.

Glenda Gregory found it a little easier.

“Words don’t describe the feeling,” she said.

For both, it was their first time to see the memorial and an emotion experience.

“Our son deploys again in January,” Glenda Gregory said. “It is really hard.”

Jim Morehead, a member of a Gold Star family, a family which had lost a loved one, walked through the memorial looking at the stories of the soldiers. Morehead’s son, Kevin Morehead, was killed in Iraq in 2003. 

Morehead said he viewed the memorial several times. Morehead had come to Toad Suck as a part of the ride, but drove his vehicle rather than a motorcycle.

“They rode their bikes, but the cold wasn’t bad though,” Morehead said.

Among those memorialized were several people with connections to Faulkner County: Army Spc. Dustin Kendall of Conway, who died Jan. 15, 2006; Army Cpl. Zachary Baker of Vilonia, who died May 28, 2007; Army Pvt. Nathan Thacker of Greenbrier, who died Oct. 12, 2007; Army Sgt. Michael Sturdivant of Conway, who died Jan. 22, 2008; and Army Pvt. William “Andy” Long of Conway, who died Jan. 1, 2009. 

On the other side of the park, live music played before the memorial ceremony began. The Wynn High School ROTC performed a gun exercise after the posting of the colors and singing of the National Anthem. Rob Hopper, who started the memorial in honor of his son, Lance Cpl. Brian C. Hopper, provided a history of the memorial and the Patriot Guard Riders. 

“In January 2005, I lost my youngest son in Iraq one week before he was to go home,” Hopper said. 

To honor his son, Hopper hosted memorial rides in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, he decided to make the ride in honor of all soldiers with Arkansas connections who had been lost in the war on terror. Hopper said 184 Gold Star families were represented at the event to raise money for a permanent memorial to be housed the Arkansas Military Museum in Jacksonville.

To close the memorial service, the names of the fallen soldiers were read. As each name was read, a balloon was released in that person’s honor. The balloon carried a photo of the fallen soldier as well as a message to return the card in exchange for a T-shirt from the event. As the balloons were released, many of the red, white and blue balloons could be seen floating away from the park and across the river.