[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 94 (Thursday, June 7, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E795]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FALLEN WARRIORS MEMORIAL GALLERY

                                 ______
                                 

                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 7, 2018

  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on the wall in my offices in 
Washington and Texas, hang pictures, faces, of fallen Texas warriors. 
These pictures remind all those who visit that freedom comes with a 
price. One man in southeastern Texas is commemorating the memory of 
these brave men and women in a unique way.
  Ken Pridgeon has a deep respect for the military. He served ten years 
in the Air Force as an electronics technician, until retiring from the 
military with a profound appreciation for the sacrifices made by our 
men and women in uniform.
  During his time in the service, he developed his talents as an 
artist, transforming Sepia tone family pictures into color photos 
during deployments for his brothers-in-arms. During a time when he was 
stationed in Florida, he was even lucky enough to take an art class run 
by American legend Norman Rockwall.
  His artistic abilities led to him taking a job as a billboard artist 
in the Houston area after his retirement from the Air Force. Suspended 
65 feet above the road, Ken painted advertisements on roadside 
billboards for decades. It was perilous work, but Pridgeon became a 
master of his profession.
  Ken's high esteem for America's servicemen never left him and 
eventually inspired him to pursue a new project that would combine this 
respect with his artistic side. Compelled to commemorate the sacrifice 
of fallen U.S. members of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, he 
began to paint portraits of Texans who gave their lives in defense of 
our country in those conflicts.
  What started as merely a side project turned into a full-time 
calling, as Ken began expanding his collection to servicemen outside of 
Texas. To date, he has painted 200 portraits of fallen American 
warriors. He donates a print of each portrait to the family of the 
portrayed, and he tries to consult them in creating each piece so that 
he can add personal touches to the painting. Ken often spends up to 
fourteen hours a day painting, beginning before the crack of dawn and 
ending well after sundown.
  Ken began displaying these portraits in a gallery in Baytown, Texas, 
his hometown. Recently, he relocated his works to the newly opened 
Fallen Warriors Memorial gallery on Cutten Road in Houston. These 
portraits complement the nearby Fallen Warriors Memorial, and now 
visitors can come face to face with some of the fallen servicemen 
honored by the memorial in Ken's gallery.
  Mr. Speaker, General George Patton once said, ``While we mourn the 
loss of such men, we should thank God that such men ever lived.'' Ken 
Pridgeon's paintings provide a fitting tribute to our country's fallen 
warriors, a rare breed of Americans.
  And that's just the way it is.

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