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WWII soldier from Marion recognized at KU ceremony

He was killed during the battle for Casino in the Italian campaign 61 years ago, but recognition was inadvertently missing when the Campanile was erected 55 years ago on the University of Kansas campus at Lawrence. The bell tower is a memorial to students who died in the war.

But 2nd Lt. Raleigh C. Bowlby Jr. was respectfully honored Saturday when his name was added to the list inside the memorial bell tower which dominates KU's attractive campus.

The son of the late Raleigh and Marie (Wight) Bowlby, he grew up in Marion, went away to the university, and was within one semester of receiving a degree in business when he volunteered for Army service in February of 1941, prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. He became an infantry officer in an anti-tank company.

The young officer married his Marion High School sweetheart, Mary Jane Shahan, before going overseas.

After noticing his name on the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., this past year, Mary Jane's daughter Kathy Booth wondered why it wasn't on the bell tower. So she asked.

KU said the omission was probably because no one had supplied his name, and quickly set about to correct it.

"It's beautiful," Mary Jane (Bowlby) Cunningham said Saturday as she held a full-size replica of the granite nameplate, her hands turning white as she grasped it. She plans to have it installed on Lt. Bowlby's grave in Marion Cemetery.

Among those present for the ceremony were Chancellor Robert Hemenway who presided, a contingent of ROTC cadets including a bugler, Army and Air Force officers, and 13 family members.

They included the widow; three cousins, Joan Meyer of Marion and Paul Keller and Thelma (Keller) Grace of Topeka; second cousins Jeff Grace and Laura Sue (Keller) Armstrong of Topeka; Cunningham's daughters by a later marriage, Kathy Booth of Sterling, and Shelley Bryan of Cimarron; Lt. Bowlby's uncle, Scott Shahan of Herington; and niece Sherry (Shahan) Neal of Kansas City, Mo.

Following the ceremony the family group enjoyed lunch in downtown Lawrence.

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