HOLLIS – This Memorial Day, the community will have a new way to honor its veterans, thanks to the efforts of the Hollis Historical Society, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 11313 and a group of local high school students.

The groups have collaborated the past few months to create a veterans mural, depicting names of all Hollis residents who served in wars as far back as the Revolutionary War and with illustrations of each conflict.

The VFW and Historical Society will host an open house to view the new memorial on Monday, May 28, at the Always Ready Engine House museum. The museum will open after the town’s Memorial Day ceremony, which begins at 5:15 p.m., to allow the community to view the mural.

According to Andy Seremth, the VFW was approached by the Historical Society several months ago for their help in creating the veterans mural. VFW Chaplain Lou Tyska helped lead the project and reached out to Hollis Brookline High School for help with the art for the project.

“It has been the hope of the Hollis Historical Society, for some time, to create a wall at the Always Ready Engine House dedicated to our brave veterans,” Seremeth said.

Research to identify and confirm the military service of past and current residents of the town began soon after the VFW was approached and now the veterans’ wall depicts more than 300 names of those who served.

“There were many who gave and a number who gave all they had including their lives,” Seremeth said.

Art teacher Lina Pepper and one of her drawing classes became involved in the project.

Pepper said she thought the project would be a great way to let the students show off their talents to the entire community, as well as lend a helping hand.

“It’s their community, and I think it’s important for them to give back and do something good,” she said.

The 10 students were immediately excited to help out, she said, and worked for about two months to come up with a way to represent each war and honor its veterans.

As the students involved worked on other projects in their classroom recently they talked about the thought process that went into creating art for the mural.

Sophomore Liam Tanner, who worked to illustrate World War I for the mural, said he and his classmates researched each of the conflicts and came up with a series of famous symbols to represent each one, such as a Humvee for the war in Iraq and a cannon being pulled by horse and wagon to represent the Civil War.

Students then decided to use mainly black and gray tones to make these symbols into silhouettes, each of which are pictured on the mural in front of an American flag drawn differently depending on how the flag appeared at the time of each war.

The students said it was interesting to see just how many soldiers from Hollis fought in each war and they were happy to do something to help their town and show off their art work.

“It will be awesome to see our work in town, and it does feel good to help,” said sophomore Katie Van Veen, who illustrated the Korean War for the mural.

For their teacher, it was good to see the students working together to accomplish such a big project.

“Every decision made was a group decision,” she said.

The students have yet to see the finished project and likely won’t see it until the community does on Memorial Day.

The exhibit will officially open at the Always Ready Engine House on May 28.

Danielle Curtis can be reached at 594-6557 or dcurtis@nashuatelegraph.com.