Members of the New Carlisle VFW Post 9966 stopped by our office Monday morning to present us with a special award.

Spider Webb and Stan Myers presented our Publisher Dale Grimm with the “Forty and Eight” National Historian Award for his continued work with local veterans’ organizations such as the VFW and American Legion.

Webb said the VFW Post 9966 wanted to thank Grimm and our staff for “the great job publishing articles of events…by all the local veterans’ organizations in our community.”

Grimm said the credit goes primarily to his son Andy Grimm, who acts as the New Carlisle News Editor.

Webb and Myers presented Grimm with the Forty and Eight’s silver eagle trophy in recognition for his work in informing readers about the contributions made to our society by veterans.

The Forty and Eight was created in March of 1920, “when Joseph W. Breen, a member of the newly formed American Legion and an officer of Breen-McCracken Legion Post 297, met in Philadelphia with fifteen other prominent Legionnaires where they originated the idea of The Forty & Eight,” their website says. “They envisioned a new and different level of elite membership and camaraderie for leaders of the American Legion. The box car of the French Railways, so familiar to American ground troops of the First World War, was chosen as the symbolic heart of the new organization. The French/Railroad theme was applied to officer titles and organizational functions.”

Webb said the Grimms’ dedication to local veterans allows the community to know “what these veterans’ organizations do for the local community, county, and state.”