For the past 28 years, the Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year Selection Committee has chosen one military veteran annually to honor Hattiesburg’s Veteran of the Year, an award designed to recognize veterans who have made sustained and notable contributions to the greater Hattiesburg community.
That tradition continues this year, as the nomination period is now open for the 2022 Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year. Applications will be accepted until October 12 for the lastest honoree, who will be introduced on Veterans Day during the city’s Veterans Day Program at Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Hattiesburg.
“This is our way, in the veterans community, of spotlighting those who called Hattiesburg – or come back home to Hattiesburg – and just continued to serve,” said Col. (Ret.) Sheila Varnado, who serves as chairperson for the Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year Selection Committee. “They serve in this community in many capacities, from church activities to feeding programs.
“(Our current) Veteran of the Year is actively involved in mental health issues and has been for many years; some have been involved in long-term recovery efforts. So it’s just a way of using their training, their skills, their knowledge they obtained when they were in the military, to serve and support and better our community.”
Basic requirements for nominations are as follows:
- Nominees must be a resident of Forrest or Lamar counties for the past five years;
- Nominees must be a veteran of any service branch of the United States Armed Forces;
- Nominees must have received an honorable discharge for military service (a copy of the DD Form 214 is required);
- Nominees must have demonstrated the spirit of good citizenship and patriotism; and
- Nominees must have made some significant contribution or contributions to not just fellow veterans, but to the overall betterment of the larger Hattiesburg community.
Anyone interested in submitting a nomination is encouraged to contact Varnado at varnados@comcast.netfor further details on the nomination process and to request an application template. The deadline for applications is October 12.
Veterans of the Year are selected by the committee, which is made up of individuals who have previously received that honor.
“We just want this to continue to be an enduring legacy,” Varnado said. “We always time it such that we make the announcement just before Veterans Day, and so they are then highlighted during that time period and are a part of the Hattiesburg Veterans Day Program.”
The Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year Program was instituted in 1994 by Col. Kenneth Smith and other members of the committee.
“They felt that, first of all, that Hattiesburg was such a welcoming community to veterans,” Varnado said. “Veterans have a large role here, in large part because Camp Shelby is so close to us, so everybody has some affiliation with the military.
“So it was their desire to recognize someone who was a veteran who was from here, or who decided to remain here after their military service was over, and just make them an integral part of this community and continue to serve.
The current Veteran of the Year is Col. Joseph E. Kinnan of the United States Air Force. Kinnan, who was honored at last year’s ceremony, has been a Hattiesburg resident for almost 40 years and served 26 years in the Air Force, from May 1962 to June 1988.
During his time as commander of Detachment 423, the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps unit at the University of Southern Mississippi, Kinnan established the tradition of AFROTC cadets standing as a 24-hour honor guard at Veterans Memorial Park during Veterans Day events.
In the years since his retirement from the military, Kinnan has continued to help veterans and the Hattiesburg community access medical, mental health, food and other services. As part of that, he serves as a member of the Governor’s Challenge, a partnership between the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the United States Veterans Affairs that helps implement statewide suicide prevention practices.
