Volunteers Get American Legion Off The Ground

Petre Thomas | Buy at photos.djournal.comWayne Vanlandingham, left, and Zach Tybor nail together a support wall at American Legion Post 49 on Saturday morning. Petre Thomas | Buy at photos.djournal.com Workers put up an exterior wall to frame off the new American Legion building on Saturday. By William Moore Daily Journal TUPELO – More than a year after a tornado flattened American Legion Post 49, construction started. Volunteers from six states began building and erecting walls Saturday morning in Tupelo for the new 7,300-square-foot building. “After all the horizontal work that has been done, it’s nice to see some vertical construction,” said Legion commander Mike Pettigrew. The work started thanks to the Eight Days of Hope leadership team that brought in a crew of skilled volunteer tradesmen who will be in Tupelo to do as much construction as they can in the next 14 days. “Our goal is to have all the outside walls up by Sunday and to finish the inside load-bearing walls on Monday,” said Eight Days of Hope director Steve Taybor.