By TRACEY DRURY
tdrury@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1609

While many area workers spend Memorial Day participating in ceremonies, a local group is going a step further to honor World War II veterans.

Honor Flight Buffalo - a newly incorporated nonprofit organization - on June 5 will fly 25 veterans to visit the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. The one-day trip, which includes meals and all transportation, also visits the war memorials for Vietnam, Korea and Iwo Jima.

The Buffalo chapter is among 90 chapters of a national group, which had its inaugural flight in May 2005 when six small planes flew 12 veterans out of Springfield, Ohio, to visit the memorial. By the following August, a waiting list of veterans led to a transition to commercial airline carriers.

Patricia Pike, a board member for the group, is clinical applications director at the VA WNY Healthcare System. She heard Honor Flight's founder talk about the group while attending a conference in 2007. She immediately signed up with the group to be a chaperone, or "guardian," and flew with a vet on the 2008 flight. Her father, now deceased, was a World War II veteran.

"My dad is gone, but I escorted someone I didn't know the first time," Pike says.

The Buffalo hub was named in honor of another such vet: Sgt. Robert Wylie, a World War II veteran and charter member of the building of the D.C. memorial, who died before the memorial was completed. His daughters Lisa and Jo-Anne are president and vice president, respectively, of the local chapter.

In 2008, the first veterans from Buffalo participated through a flight coordinated by another chapter. It took two years for the group to complete its incorporation and create a hub in Buffalo. Today, the group has 200 veterans on its waiting list. And with more than 1,200 World War II veterans dying nationally each day, there is a sense of urgency to accommodate those on the waiting list.

Honor Flight Buffalo CEO Charles Dunkle, table-games floor supervisor at Seneca Niagara Casino, says the group hopes to have two or three more flights in September, possibly doubling capacity.

"We don't have enough room for all of them - and these heroes want to go," he says. "No one's going to look at that memorial the way they can. It's in their honor."

David Goodman, a senior partner with Cellino & Barnes P.C., contributed all of the legal work necessary to get the incorporation completed and continues to serve on the group's advisory board. His father was a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars.

"It's such a well-run organization by such truly committed folks that my involvement most of the time is simply to sit back in admiration for the work they're doing," Goodman says. "The fact they have the chance to do this and at no cost to these folks is just a wonderful opportunity."

Sponsors for the local chapter include Ark Digital Imaging, Pride Office Products and Boulevard Produce of Tonawanda, which provides fruit for breakfast on the flights. Additional donors and supporters are needed: Total cost for each participant is $300, with guardians paying their own way. The veterans also receive such extras as one-use cameras, snacks, loaner wheelchairs and sun/rain umbrellas.

Visit www.honorflightbuffalo.org for more information.