A2 BEDFORD BULLETIN — Wednesday, May 14, 2025
TRIBUTE
From Page A1
This is where students athletes played basketball all through the time the Bedford Boys attended Bedford High School. It served as the basketball court in the 1950s, too. The Tribute Center has seen visitors from all 50 states and 29 foreign countries, including German, Trip Advisor rates the Tribute Center as the number one place to visit in Bedford.
The 26-foot wide room gives a lot more display space. The new space includes an auditorium that can seat 70 people.
They have a 10 by 15 foot section of Bedford High School’s stage. The auditorium was destroyed in a fire in 2021 but the Tribute Center has a portion of the stage with its original seating attached to it. Most of the Bedford Boys walked across that stage to receive their high school diplomas.
It also has a section of the basketball display space. This made the hall to display the photos of all the Bedford Boys who died on D-Day and all the Bedford Boys who came home.
The opposition wall has two groups of photos for each other. Ken Parker said this was Linda’s idea.
The display will include the 10 of the Purple Heart medals awarded to Bedford Boys.
The Tribute Center has a display dedicated to Captain Taylor Fellows, Cpt. Fellows was the CO of A Company. After detailed briefing on their objective for company officers, he was talking with his XO, 1st Lieutenant Elisha Ray Nance on the way back.
“Ray, we are all going to die,” Nance later remembered him telling him.
Later, Capt. Fellows was put in the hospital with sinus infection. This was a much more serious infection back when penicillin was in short supply space. This made him immune to some antibiotics and forced him to be there.
Instead of checking his mail, some of the medals that had been awarded to Bedford Boys after the war, sat in his desk drawer until the late 1970s.
The Tribute Center has found these medals and returned them to families in Nazareth Methodist Church and on prom night display. The church was eventually abandoned decades ago, but the case remains secured in the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford.
The Tribute Center made the arrangement to display dedicated to Elizabeth Teass.
Teass Teass was a student at Greens Drugstore when the telegrams started arriving the morning of July 17, 1944.
Teass would typically start the day by typing “Good morning, Roanoke.”
Instead of the usual “Good morning,” the message from the Western Union office in Roanoke was nothing good. “We have casualties.”
Families either knew all was not right back in those days.
Photo caption:
The Tribute Center now has expanded display areas.
Tribute Center wine expands
BY JOHN BARNHART
STAFF WRITER
From Page A1
The Bedford Boys Tribute Center has expanded. They are still in the former Green's Drug Store, they are just in a different part of it.
Back in 1954, Charlie Green needed more space. He added the building next door and opened up the wall. Green operated with both sections until 1974.
Prior to Green's 1954 expansion, according to Ken Park- er, who along with his wife, Linda, are co-curators of the Tribute Center, the building was a 5 and 10 cent general store. Bedford High School was right up the street, so the Bedford Boys would have stopped in there frequently as well as in Green's Drug Store, which had a soda fountain.
Eventually, Green got a surprise when he moved his drug store to Westgate Shopping center. He discovered that he was contractually obligated to close up the opening between the two buildings. That's why it has been two buildings for the last nearly 50 years.
Like Green, the Parkers were out of space to properly display the artifacts they have on loan. Parker said they are all on loan to them from the Bedford Boys' families.
The Tribute Center has been very successful. They opened on June 1, 2019 and will celebrate their six year SEE TRIBUTE/PAGE A2
A stained glass window, rescued from Nazareth Meth- odist Church, dedicated to Captain Taylor Fellers.