Secretary of State Trey Grayson visited Henderson County Monday to promote his program to honor veterans.
The program, "Vote in Honor of a Veteran," was unveiled last year, and some of the personalized buttons were available locally for the May 22 primary election.
Secretary of State Trey Grayson’s veterans program distributes red, white and blue buttons that say “My Vote Honors Veteran” with a white space left so the veteran’s name can be inked in.
"We started this for the primary but we got the buttons to the county clerks' offices a little bit later than we hoped," Grayson said, noting that his office now has lots of buttons available "and we also have a new poster, which we didn't have for the primary."
The red, white and blue buttons say "My Vote Honors Veteran" with a blank space left so the veteran's name can be inserted with a pen.
"It's really a nice program," Grayson said, and has been well-received. "About a dozen states have started doing this so far, so we studied what each state did and borrowed the parts we liked."
The buttons can be obtained at the secretary of state's Web site --
www.sos.ky.gov/veterans -- or at the Henderson County Clerk's Office.
That same Web site features a tribute gallery where visitors can read stories and tributes from the friends and families who have elected to honor their veterans. Citizens can submit a written tribute, and selected tributes will be posted on-line or collected for the archives of the Kentucky Historical Society.
Video-taped tributes will also be collected, Grayson said, beginning at the Kentucky State Fair, which starts next week.
"At our booth we're going to have a video camera and we're going to tape testimonials ... about why they're honoring that veteran," he said. "Preserving those stories on videotape is pretty valuable and we're going to turn those over to the state archives and we're going to put them on (the video-sharing Web site) YouTube, so people can search them. It's also a way we can do it without spending a lot of taxpayer dollars."