At Tuesday’s meeting of the Marquette County Board, area military veterans demonstrated their seemingly undying willingness to serve.

In this case, having already given military service to their country, nearly a dozen vets volunteered for a single appointment to the county’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee, filling an unexpired term of Dave Hall, a committee member who had to step down from his post for a family-related concern.

The 11 candidates for the position included Jarrod Keni and Normon Toth of Gwinn, James Mead of Big Bay, Eugene Miller and Brian Roti of Negaunee and Marquette residents Thomas Charmley, Jerry Irby, Stephen Laszlo, Brian Naze, Vincent Sinervo and Robert Stephenson.

Mead received three votes from the 6-member county board; Sinervo got two and Toth got one. A motion was unanimously then approved to appoint Mead to the position.

We think it’s phenomenal that so many candidates would line up for a single committee position. A similar demonstration of willingness by the vets to serve was on display in December when the county board created the committee.

At that time, Hall was appointed to the committee, one of five people – from a field of 16 candidates – named to fill vacancies on the panel associated with the new Marquette County Veterans’ Affairs Department.

Additional persons appointed to the veterans’ committee in December included Victor Romback of Negaunee, serving a one-year term; Tracey Ann Tippett of Champion serving a two-year term; James Provost of Marquette, serving a three-year term and George LaBlonde III who is serving a four-year term. Hall was also serving a four-year term, which expires in 2018.

We applaud the local vets for their efforts to not only petition the county board to create the department and committee, not only to educate voters on the millage proposal passed to fund the vets agency, but also the outstanding continued willingness to volunteer to serve on the committee.

If we could get this type of superb participation for vacancies on all of the county’s committees our communities would be better served on a whole range of concerns.

Once again, we can all see clearly the shining example of the area’s military veterans.

We salute you.