Members of the public are encouraged to wave American flags and pay their respects to U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Stanley Price during a funeral procession from Sticklin Funeral Chapel to Stricklin Greenwood Memorial Park in Centralia on Friday, Aug. 30.
Price’s remains will arrive from Hawaii on Aug. 29 in Portland. A procession will take Price from Portland International Airport to Stricklin Funeral Chapel on Thursday in preparation for his funeral.
The official funeral procession departs from Sticklin Funeral Chapel, located at 437 S. Gold St. in Centralia, at 10:15 a.m. on Aug. 30, according to a news release.
From the chapel, the procession will head west on Fair Street, then north on Kresky Avenue and continue north when Kresky turns into Tower Avenue.
The procession will continue on Tower Avenue until turning west on Main Street and continuing west when Main turns into Harrison Avenue. It will then turn north on Johnson Road before turning west on Reynolds Road to Van Wormer Street, where Stricklin Greenwood Memorial Park is located.
The graveside service with full military honors begins at 11 a.m. at Greenwood Memorial Park.
“Only designated family members and designated Patriot Guard riders will accompany Sgt. Price in the procession, however, neighbors and the community are encouraged to pay their respects along the procession route,” Sticklin Funeral Chapel said in a news release.
Sticklin Funeral Chapel has American flags available for the public to pick up.
A Centralia High School graduate, Price was only 26 when he was killed on March 11, 1968, when a radar outpost he was at atop Phou Pha Thi mountain in Laos’ Houaphan Province was overrun by a North Vietnamese attack.
The mystery of what happened to Price was solved when the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced it had identified Price’s remains using mitochondrial DNA analysis in conjunction with circumstantial evidence and interviews from locals in the Houaphan Province, according to previous reporting by The Chronicle.
Price’s remains were identified 66 years after his death, according to a Sticklin news release.
To learn more about Price, read The Chronicle’s previous story announcing his funeral here https://bit.ly/4dPzy5n.
