Sycamore family heard these veterans didn’t expect a parade Friday. So they gave them one.

SYCAMORE – Earlier this week, the Kunkel family read a MidWeek newspaper article in which Sycamore veterans said they didn’t expect a parade for the holiday.

On Friday, the family gave them one.

The Kunkel family rode their bikes around the parking lot of the Grand Victorian of Sycamore, a senior-living facility, Friday afternoon as a way to bring Veterans Day celebrations to veteran residents.

Joann Kunkel said she was inspired to put on the impromptu parade after reading this week’s MidWeek feature story, which invited three veterans to share tales of their service during World War II and the Korean War.

“I was in tears by the time I got done reading that article,” Kunkel said.

In the article, Jim Tull, a 91-year-old Korean War combat veteran, lamented that he didn’t think Veterans Day festivities were what they used to be.

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US Navy veteran Richard Korleski, 93, who served in the Korean War, smiles as he talks to members of the Kunkel family after they rode their bikes in a parade on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022, at the Grand Victorian assisted living facility in Sycamore. Sycamore resident Joann Kunkel read a story in the current Midweek that contained a quote from one of the veterans at the facility that lamented the lack of a parade. So she and her grandkids decided to have one for them. (Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.com/Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.co)

In response, Kunkel said she pulled her three grandchildren – Jameson Kunkel, 9; Johonna Kunkel, 7 and Jaxon Kunkel, 5 – out of school at noon Friday to put on a four-person parade for the Sycamore veterans. The Kunkels decorated their bikes with American flare and taped signs to their handlebars that thanked veterans for their service.

“It’s not much, but it’s something,” Kunkel said.

Once off her bike, Kunkel immediately sought out the two veterans in attendance to thank them for their service to the county.

“It was a pleasure – when I think back on it, not when I was doing it,” U.S. Navy Aviation Ordnanceman Richard Korleski, 93, said in reflection on his service during the Korean War.

After the hoopla of the bike parade, James, Johonna and Jaxon gave their Veterans Day signs to Korleski and Ken Cooper, a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Pacific theater in 1945 during World War II.

“Well, I think it’s real neat,” said Cooper, 96. “It’s nice of the kids to do this. I appreciate it.”

Korleski, who said he’d had a good Veterans Day, said he thought it was very nice of the Kunkel family to put on the bike parade at the Grand Victorian of Sycamore.

“I’m impressed that they still remember us and come to console us and cheer us up and everything,” Korleski said. “These people are pretty nice.”