Story and Photo by Van Mitchell, Staff Writer
The American Legion Lebron Post 58 in Guthrie has a long history of doing community outreach helping veterans, active-duty members, and families of those who have served.
The American Legion Post is expanding its community outreach through a series of initiatives to help veterans receive the benefits and help they need, said Post Commander Kim Vincent.
Vincent, a U.S. Navy veteran, has served as the post commander since August.
She and her husband, also a Navy veteran, moved to Oklahoma from San Diego.
“For 20 years we’d come to Oklahoma. My childhood best friend from Indiana moved to Edmond about 27 years ago,” Vincent said. “We would just stay at her ranch, and we fell in love with it.”
Vincent said she wanted to get involved with the Guthrie community.
“I quickly got involved with the American Legion when we moved here,” she said. “I have a wonderful team of officers working with me. Together we have been so successful in starting new programs and getting them established.”
One of those programs was the creation of the Bunker 58 Esports program, which is designed to reduce veteran suicide by providing an environment of connection, teamwork, and camaraderie for local veterans.
“Bunker 58 started as an idea between three Legionnaires a couple of years ago,” said Army veteran and Lebron Post 58 Chaplain George Shafer. “We were sitting around drinking coffee, and one of our members read an article in the National American Legion Magazine about a partnership with a gaming organization. And in that article, it explained to us that eSports provides a level of camaraderie, accountability, and competition that veterans crave. We began the process of looking into what it would look like to get that program at our Post here in Guthrie. And we began looking at the cost and looking into the internet and considering where we could potentially run the program.”
Shafer said the grand opening this summer was a success.
“It exceeded our expectations dramatically,” he said. “We were hoping on a Wednesday afternoon to hopefully get 10 or 20 people to come out and look at what we were doing. We ended up having over 100 people show up. We were able to speak with veterans and attendees who had never stepped foot into an American Legion before. We’ve also been able to attract new members from a younger demographic. And the response that we got from our immediate community was overwhelmingly special.”
Steve Sibley, a U.S. Army veteran, serves as the Lebron Post 58’s Community Engagement Officer.
He also serves as an Account Executive with Senior News and Living Magazine.
Sibley said one of his goals is helping launch the Oklahoma Veteran News-Magazine in January 2025.
Oklahoma is home to approximately 285,000 veterans, active-duty members, Guard and reservists. That number reaches well over half-a-million when you include their spouses and caregivers.
For veterans in Oklahoma, their greatest challenge is how and where do they find and access all the resources available to them? Likewise, for providers with services, information, and resources for veterans and their caregivers, their challenge is connecting with veterans and their family members.
“The purpose of our new magazine is to not only fill that gap, but also bring to light the stories of Oklahoma’s active service members, guard, reserve members, veterans, and veteran owned businesses,” Sibley said. “My goal has been for over two years now to come up with some type of veteran-focused news magazine for Oklahoma, while helping veterans access the benefits that they have. There’s so much information out there and so many benefits that they can access. A lot of them just don’t know. I want to get that information out.”
Sibley said he and Vincent have worked together to put together veteran resource fairs at the American Legion.
“Kim and I started talking about an opportunity to do a resource fair for veterans last November,” he said. “We started with that, and things have just gone from there. They’re doing all these awesome things in the community already. I want to take what we’re doing here at the Legion and engage with the community. We’re working hand in hand with the Guthrie Chamber and we’re going to their weekly events when we can, and we’re trying to schedule our officers, so we have someone there all the time.”
Sibley said the American Legion Post is hosting its next Veteran and Senior Wellness and Resource Fair Nov. 21 at the Post located at 123 N. 1st Street from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Additionally, he said the Post also hosts Thursday morning coffees for veterans from 9 a.m.-noon.
“We have Thursday morning coffee, and we want to do things like invite our first responders and recognize their work in the community,” he said.
Vincent said the community outreach also focuses on the next generation of future military members.
She said the Post has worked with Colonel Kyle Brede, (US Army RET) the JROTC commander at Guthrie High School to help spread the word about the American Legion and its purpose.
“It’s important for us to be out in the community and engaging with the community and its young people to get them excited to hopefully one day join our military especially since recruiting numbers have recently been declining,” Vincent said.
Vincent said the Lebron Post’s biggest fundraiser event each year is its role in organizing Guthrie’s annual 89er Day celebration each April. The 2025 celebration will mark the 96th annual event.
Vincent said one of the Post’s long-term goals is providing temporary/transitional housing for veterans.
“We have a vision of having some transitioning homes,” she said. “We want to be able to provide some kind of housing for them temporarily, and that’s going to take some time. We need property to do that.”
Vincent said the Post is considering looking for a location that is in a quieter spot.
“I feel like we need a space outside of town, with fewer horns honking, or the ambulance going to the hospital,” she said.
Vincent said telling a veteran’s story is important.
The Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served from World War I through more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service.
“We’re partnering with Senator (James) Lankford’s office, with the Veteran History Project, where they’re coming up here Dec. 5, where volunteers from the senator’s office and the Red Cross will come and sit down with veterans and record their stories,” she said.
For more information about the programs at Lebron Post 58 call (405)282-2589 or visit
https://lebronpost58.org
