Local Eagle Scout Isaac Striemer is finishing his Eagle Scout project with a big celebration.

Having taken on a Civil War gravestone restoration project, Striemer will hold a dedication ceremony 10 a.m. Saturday at Lone Cedar Cemetery in rural Sherburn. Striemer discussed how he got started on the project.

“Our local charter for our Boy Scout troop is the Sherburn American Legion,” he said. “The project started with me going over there and asking if they had any possible project opportunities, and the commander said there was a gravestone project that needed to be done at a small cemetery south of Sherburn. So I jumped right on it and thought that would be a great idea.

“As soon as that happened, my dad and I went out there and identified the stone, which was in pretty tough shape. It was worn down to the point where we couldn’t read the name on it.

“So we had to do a bunch of etchings of it and we finally got the name figured out.”

From there, Isaac had to go to the Martin County Veterans Service Office in Fairmont to begin the process of getting a new gravestone. The project has taken him multiple years to complete.

“I started this probably two and a half years ago,” he said. “The hardest part was getting all the records straight, just getting his name, where he fought, and getting it all right so the stone came back correctly.

“When we ordered the stone, we were told it could take up to three years to get here. So I was quite surprised when I got an email from the shipping company about a month later, saying that it was going to be at our front doorstep in a couple of days.”

Striemer said he particularly enjoyed learning about the soldier, the Civil War and the time period.

“You learn about the Civil War in school, but you really just skim the surface,” he said. “With this man, we went through his enlistment, got all those papers, and learned about where he fought and the things that he went through.”

The dedication ceremony will include the New Ulm Battery Civil War re-enactors firing their cannon, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator giving the Gettysburg Address, two area Legions, and one family member of the man who will visit from Nebraska. Then there will be the dedication itself, followed by an Eagle Scout ceremony.

Lone Cedar Cemetery is located at 895 80th Avenue in rural Sherburn.