Collingsworth Chronicles

Hero from Quail remembered

Jimmy Don Lester was engaged to Karen Gale Bunch. The two had formally announced a wedding date of July 12, 1969, to be held in the Blue Spring Baptist Church, Eldon, MO.
Jimmy Don Lester was engaged to Karen Gale Bunch. The two had formally announced a wedding date of July 12, 1969, to be held in the Blue Spring Baptist Church, Eldon, MO.

For 33 years, a blank space under “Vietnam” on the Collingsworth County Veterans Memorial echoed a statement in a Nov. 16, 1989, Wellington Leader article, “there were no local deaths in the Vietnam conflict.” When it was learned that two men from Collingsworth County, Jimmy Don Lester and Phillip Warren Tompkins, had made the supreme sacrifice in Vietnam, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 6439 …