U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Gregory Belanger lost his life in 2003 during the Iraq War and his memory had been memorialized in his hometown for over 20 years, until now. Belanger's family and the broader South Deerfield, Mass., community are speaking out in his defense after his former school district, Frontier Regional School, erected a new baseball field scoreboard but decided not to move a memorial plaque in Belanger's memory with it. That plaque, installed in 2004, was dedicated to the 1998 graduate. The Frontier Regional School District School Committee, however, voted June 11 not to move Belanger's plaque formerly situated underneath the old scoreboard to the new one. The vote was resounding, with seven committee members voting against moving it while just two supported it.
"I was honestly pretty shocked," Allison Tudryn, Belanger's sister, told Military.com.
She explained that the item was part of the June 11 agenda due to her mother, Kathleen Belanger, who implored the district to move the memorial to the new scoreboard to honor her son's memory and legacy. Frontier Superintendent Darius Modestow said the scoreboard became “non-functional” shortly after its installation due to electrical issues, according to the Greenfield Recorder. The dispute also lies in the district's own memorial policy, instituted in 2018, which states: “The School Committee recognizes that the death of a student, member of the staff or prominent community member is deeply felt by the school community. As places designed primarily to support learning, school sites should not serve as the main venue for permanent memorials.” "My mom, Greg's mom, went and spoke at the June 11th school committee meeting and made a simple request: move his memorial plaque from point A to point B," Tudryn said. "She spoke during public comment, and they [the committee] took that into consideration. ... Any existing memorials could only be removed if the school committee voted to remove it."
