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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Wilmington Gold Star Mom Laying Wreaths for the Fallen

Wilmington resident Norma Luther is riding in a caravan of about 20 trucks and busses for the Wreaths Across America program.

WHQR’s Michelle Bliss caught up with Luther who started the journey last week when the caravan picked up more than 90,000 wreaths from Maine for a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Saturday.

Luther is the national president of the American Gold Star Mothers, a group for women who have lost a child during or as a result of military service.

She’ll be laying a wreath on her son’s grave in Arlington tomorrow. Army Captain Glen Adams, Jr. died in 1988.

“When he graduated from West Point in ’84, he decided to fly helicopters—that’s what his service was. And he was serving in Germany and had a crash on a foggy mountaintop and lost his life there.”

This year, more than 330,000 wreaths will be laid in 25 countries for the Wreaths Across America program. There will be ceremonies at more than 700 cemeteries across the US, including Wilmington.

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After growing up in Woodbridge, Virginia, Michelle attended Virginia Tech before moving to Wilmington to complete her Master in Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. Her reporting and nonfiction writing have been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, within the pages of Wrightsville Beach Magazine, and in literary journals like River Teeth and Ninth Letter. Before moving to Wilmington, Michelle served as the general manager for WUVT, a community radio station in Blacksburg, Virginia. She lives with her husband Scott and their pups, Katie, Cooper, and Mosey.