Teens Cleaning Park Make Fantastic, Historical Find: WWII Dog Tags of Kentucky’s First Black Constable

A pair of high schoolers made quite the find while cleaning up a park this month in Kentucky: Dog tags that belonged to a publicly celebrated World War II veteran.

Woodford County High School juniors Hattie Steen and Meaghan Burke were cleaning up Huntertown Community Interpretive Park near Versailles when they made the discovery, according to WKYT News and WDKY News. The name “Fred D. Jackson” can be seen on the dog tags.

Jackson was not only a WWII veteran, but was also a pilot. He became Kentucky’s first African-American constable in 1965 and was also a civil rights leader in the state, according to the reports.

The park’s location reportedly used to be an African-American hamlet, and the two girls say they found the dog tag in the back of a home. WKYT reported that the area is where Jackson's residence once stood.

“I was surprised to just to find it just sitting there on the surface level,” Hattie Steen said of her discovery. “And it wasn’t rusty. It was just a little dirty, but that was about it.”

The two high school juniors handed over their find to a board member of the park, Sioux Finney, who they say was “so excited” by it because she “knew the person.”

“I looked at the dog tag, and I saw it said Fred D. Jackson, and I said, ‘Girls, I’m about to faint,’” Finney told WKYT.

Geraldine Berry, Jackson’s sister, reportedly praised the high school girls’ discovery, saying that they were “amazing.”

“It’s good that they recognize that it was something important and showed it to Sioux,” Berry told the Lexington news station.

Although Jackson passed away in 2007, his state continues to honor him. The City of Lexington has even designated November 19th as Fred Jackson Day.