OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) - A monument honoring Air Force Col. Charles E.
Shelton, who was shot down over Laos in 1965, will begin taking shape soon
in downtown Owensboro.

   Workers from Hagan Construction will begin digging the foundation and
pouring the concrete floor for the 34-foot-wide granite-and-limestone plaza
in Smothers Park this week.

    Dedication ceremonies are planned for Sept. 18 - National POW/MIA
Recognition Day.

    Construction on the Col. Charles E. Shelton Freedom Memorial is
beginning after about five years of planning and fundraising.

    An Owensboro native whose plane was shot down on his 33rd birthday -
April 29, 1965, Shelton parachuted safely into Laos, was captured three days
later and never officially heard from again. He eventually became known as
"America's Last POW."

    His wife, Marian, fought to keep him listed as a POW when the government
declared other American POWs of the Vietnam War dead in the late 1970s. But
the memorial also honors all prisoners of war and those who never came home
from all wars.

    The face of the 3-ton black granite monument that will be the memorial's
focal point features a life-sized etching of Shelton with broken ropes
binding his wrists and the ghostly faces of half a dozen American prisoners
from both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam around him.

    The back of the monument will show Marian Shelton and the Shelton
children, representing all the families left behind with unanswered
questions

    It also will feature a poem and an explanation of the memorial.

    The artist engraving the powerful pictures onto the granite is a former
Russian soldier who became an American citizen earlier this month.

    Valeriy Klinberg, 39, said the Shelton memorial is the largest project
he's ever tackled.

    "I could draw, but I had never done it for a living until I moved to the
United States five years ago," he said last week.

    Roy Keith, Jr., president of Keith Rock of Ages Monuments in
Elizabethtown, said the memorial will be surrounded by a privacy fence made
of laminated safety glass, etched with the numbers of POWs and MIAs from
World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The glass panels will be
lighted at night. Two benches will let visitors sit and meditate. Keith said
he hopes to have the memorial completed in early September.

    "I'd like to have it ready seven to 10 days early and just cover it
until the dedication," he said. "But there's a lot of work to do."

    The black granite centerpiece is actually three 1-ton pieces of granite
held together by stainless steel pins. It's 7 feet tall and 9 feet wide and
will sit on a one-foot pedestal. The floor of the memorial will be covered
with bricklike pavers, many of them engraved with the names of veterans.

     Denney said the committee still is raising money for the $250,000
memorial. Donations can be sent to the Shelton Committee, PO Box 1158,
Owensboro, KY 42302.