Naperville North Peace Garden A Labor of Love

Teachers and students at came together last week to complete a special task, creating a peace garden to honor two former students who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Memorial Peace Garden, located near the school entrance in an atrium, was two years in the making and the brainchild of Jenne Dehmlow, a psychology teacher and humanities coordinator at the school.

When Dehmlow was a teacher at Wheaton-Warrenville South the school had a memorial garden.

“I wondered if they had anything here at North and there wasn’t,” Dehmlow said last week. “And, that bothered me.”

Dehmlow was determined to see that a memorial garden would be created to honor Army Staff Sgt. Andrew R. Pokorny and Marine Cpl. Anthony G. Mihalo. Pokorny lost his life while fighting in Iraq in 2003 and Mihalo died during the combat operation in Afghanistan in 2008.

Jeff Bedore, a history teacher at the high school knew Mihalo, he said. Bedore also served as a Marine. He was very involved in the planning process for the garden and said he was surprised how moving it was for him when he carried in the stone bearing Mihalo’s name and placed it in the garden.

“It’s amazing that these boys should be remembered,” Bedore said. “I want them to be remembered.”

But, he hopes current students realize how much the men gave for their country.

“I want them [the students] to know everything they take for granted doesn’t come for free. It’s a daily reminder,” Bedore said.

While the school has teachers with different political views, all those who played a role came together and chose to create a memorial peace garden, Dehmlow said.

The process began last year with Dehmlow getting quotes for the project that were too costly, with some firms wanting to charge $10,000, Dehmlow said. But, one of the teachers had a friend who worked for a landscaping firm. Every Earth Day the firm donates a project and this year they volunteered to help the school complete the garden.

Kathy Richardson, a landscape designer with Grant & Power, the firm that donated its services, came up with the design for the garden.

While brainstorming a design, Richardson said she found a peace flag online and took the concept of the flag’s color rainbow, and transferred that to the garden design.

Normally Grant & Power does residential landscapes, Richardson said.

“This means a lot more and we could tell this was very important to the people involved,” Richardson said. “This is bigger than what we normally do. It represents peace and honoring those who serve and do so much for us.”

The garden includes perennial plantings that will not require a lot of care for them to survive. With the help of student fundraising and donations from the VFW, $6,000 was raised for the center stone in the garden. The Class of 2011 paid for the trellises and the stained glass that will hang in the garden.

Bedore and Tom Arlis, from the school’s art department, designed the stained glass, which includes two peace doves, two gold stars, a Soldier’s Medal, a Purple Star and the phrase: “Refuge in memory. Solace in Peace.”

Also included in the garden are two peace poles that students purchased last year, said Kermit Eloy, a history teacher.

“What is so unique about the garden is the hope for peace and the sacrifice of soldiers,” he said.

Eloy said he wasn’t surprised that so many students wanted to help with the project.

Two of the students who volunteered were Matt Strouse, 17 and a junior, and Jonathan Buettner, 14 and a freshman.

Buettner said he likes gardening and had done an Eagle Scout project related to gardening. When he heard about the project, he wanted to participate. He also has a friend who is overseas right now in the service.

“I thought this would be a good way to honor those in the service,” Buettner said.

Strouse said he came to school last Wednesday without any idea he would be volunteering, but he has an uncle in the service and volunteering to work on the project seemed like a good thing to do and he really wanted to participate, so he asked to help.

“I saw them starting the garden,” he said. “And, I thought it was a good idea and the purpose was important.”