Members of Troop B of the New York State Police salute during the playing of Taps at Memorial Day services May 23. Photo by Keith Lobdell.
Ray Brook — Members of the New York State Police paused to honor those who have sacrificed all in the line of duty.
The NYSP held Memorial Services at the Troop B headquarters in Ray Brook Wednesday, May 23, with special honor given to Trooper Raymond John Chippendale.
Chippendale, who was 27 in 1932, was fatally injured while operating his motorcycle on the Watertown-Carthage Road near the village of Carthage, according to the NYSP Wall of Honor website. The accident occurred at the same curve on which another Trooper had been injured just two years before.
Chippendale had joined the Division of State Police on June 1, 1930, and had been recently transferred to the Adams station.
“On this day we pause of a brief moment to pay tribute to those who have made their final patrol,” Troop B Commander Rick Smith said. “All that our fallen heroes sacrificed must be remembered.”
According to Smith, 126 members of the NYSP have been killed on duty, with 13 of those members serving in Troop B at the time of their deaths. At the service were the parents of the two most recent troopers killed in action, Lawrence P. Gleason, who was killed Feb. 11, 2002, while responding to a complaint in Crown Point; and Shawn W. Snow, who was killed when struck by an electrical current on Aug. 3, 2008.
Chippendale’s name joined Gleason’s and Snow’s as part of a Memorial at the headquarters, where the names of 12 of the 13 troopers killed in Troop B are etched in stone. Those names also include James A. Skiff (May 25, 1920), Martin E. Ryan (Nov. 25, 1931), Theophilus Gaines (Jan. 15, 1932), William O. Johnson (April 12, 1945 - killed in WWII), Arthur “Leo” LaCroix (July 4, 1954), Ronald J. Donahue (May 23, 1959), John S. Kelley (Dec. 2, 1960), Charles W. Perkins (Oct. 26, 1967) and Thomas L. Pryme (July 24, 1982).
The 13th Troop B casualty was Peter J. Formosa, who died Jan. 13, 1943.
The ceremony included a wreath laying at the memorial, the unveiling of the stone honoring Chippendale, a 21-gun salute and the playing of “Taps.”
After the ceremony, those in attendance, including many retired members of the force, attended a luncheon at the station.
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