OceanPinesROC.com
R C Edition OCEAN PINES • WEST OCEAN CITY • BERLIN MD
November 15, 2024
Volume 1, Issue 1
Ribbon cut, new OP Memorial Pavilion dedicated preceding patriotic Veterans Day ceremony By Giovanni Guido Staff Writer As the dedication of the new, $200,000 Worcester County Veterans Memorial Pavilion began, Memorial Foundation President Marie Gilmore told attendees they were looking at “the fruition of several years of wishing and years of planning and building.” “We are grateful to the Ocean Pines Board of Directors and Ocean Pines General Manager John Viola who so willingly joined us in our mission,” Gilmore said at the Monday, Nov. 11, event. “We have something very special here and this certainly is a part of it,” Viola said. He joined Gilmore and members of the Ocean Pines Board of Directors and Memorial Foundation to snip a yellow ribbon draped across the 10-sided, 40-foot wide, 22-foot high structure. It is similar to the gazebo at White Horse Park. The Veterans Memorial Foundation paid $70,000 of the cost for the pavilion and the OPA Board funded the remainder. At a recent OPA Board meeting, Viola explained the cost increased from the original estimate. When Viola first brought construction of a pavilion to the board’s attention, in December 2023, he estimated the cost at $100,000 and said it would be split equally between the OPA and the Foundation. Foundation members “have given me the permission to go forward to work with an outside contractor,” he said, referring to The Whayland Company in Laurel, Del. The board approved the request for construction of a pavilion and at the time Viola estimated the project to be finished by May 2024, but the start was postponed until September. “Based upon discussions with the Veterans Memorial Foundation, it was mutually decided to wait,”
WWII veteran recounts his life in the war By Giovanni Guido Staff Writer
ROC Edition • Sherrie Clifford, Publisher
Ocean Pines dignitaries gather for the ribbon cutting and dedication of the new Veterans Memorial Pavilion, just before the annual Veterans Day ceremony at Memorial Park this week.
Viola told ROC Edition, replying to a reporter’s e-mail. Later, during the community’s annual membership meeting on Aug. 10, the general manager said he met with Gilmore to make changes to the sketches and designs of the pavilion. Extra lighting and a generator were added as well as security
See PAVILION page 3
World War II veteran Morris Semiatin proudly displayed the Purple Heart hanging around his neck, awarded for being injured in the Battle of Iwo Jima, as friends and fellow veterans snapped photographs and stopped by to say hello to him at the Ocean Pines Veterans Day Salute on Monday. It’s been 80 years since the 98-year-old Semiatin enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1944, and he still cherishes that Purple Heart. After the war, his son, Ben, with whom he makes his home in Ocean City, said, his father returned to his home in Baltimore to pursue a career in photography, eventually becoming a White House photographer. He photographed anybody who set foot in the White House from world leaders, politicians, royalty, movie stars, athletes and, of course, presidents. As a high school graduate, the elder Semiatin knew he would be
ROC Edition • Giovanni Guido
A smiling Morris Semiatin, attending the Veterans Salute in Ocean Pines on Veterans Day, holds the Purple Heart he was presented for being injured during World War II.
drafted sooner or later because by 1944 America was in the thick of WWII and his father had just turned 18. He didn’t want to end up in the U.S. Army like his older brother did and be shipped to Europe, so he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. The elder Semiatin was sent to the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, S.C., where he was
See VETERAN page 4