Frank Welker Coit
Private, U.S. Army
Born Jan. 16, 1892
Died Sept. 27, 1918
After his family moved to the El Reno area from Missouri, Frank Welker Coit - who like many during that era bore his mother’s maiden name as his middle name - attended grade school in El Reno.
Freddie Hobson
USAF 10/23/1961 - 10/22/1965
Served in Italy for 15 months and Texas for 33 months.
Top secret security clearance.
Honorably discharged as E-4 Sergeant.
Grover Benjamin Bannister
Private, U.S. Army Coastal Artillery Corps, Company 1
Born Oct. 8, 1888
Died Oct. 6, 1918
Grover Benjamin Bannister was the son of Judge Charles A. Bannister and Josephine Wilma (Hanks) Bannister.
He was born Oct. 8, 1888, in Pratt County, Kan., and he and his family moved to Oklahoma in 1889, first settling on a farm east of El Reno. In 1895, the family built a new home at 200 N. Barker Avenue in El Reno, where they lived for decades thereafter.
Garland Parker
Army Air Corp 1945-46, served in Germany.
► Nov. 11, 1918, was largely considered the end of the “war to end all wars,” even though the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I, was signed roughly seven months later on June 28, 1919.
► While Veterans Day is an American holiday, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and France also honor the veterans of World War I and World War II on or near Nov. 11. Canada celebrates Remembrance Day, while Britain observes Remembrance Sunday each year on the second Sunday of November.
By Jesse Hardy
(Brian Rukes’ AP English 3 class)
Michael James Booher went to Cherokee High School and graduated in 1991.
William Roberts “Billy” Laird
1940 graduate of El Reno High School.
Born March 16, 1921
Died Feb. 7, 1943
Laird enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 18, 1942, just about six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
SM3c Laird was one of two signalmen assigned to the troop transport ship the Henry R. Mallory.
Harry Eugene Bradly
Born Dec. 13, 1922
Died Jan. 25, 1943
Died in a crash of an AT-6 Texan trainer aircraft along the coast of Texas.
Bradly only attended El Reno schools through the seventh grade, at which point his family moved to Chicago, Ill., his father working for the Rock Island Railroad and being transferred there from El Reno.
