Memorial Day: Time for the 10th-annual Thunder Rolls in Belleville

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
David C. Brown Funeral Home and the Brown Family Center are sponsoring the 10th-annual Motorcycle Ride and Memorial Day Service to honor veterans.
On Monday, motorcyclists will start registering at 11 a.m. for the 27.8-mile ride at Wayne County Community College, 9555 Haggerty Road in Van Buren Township, north of I-94.
The riders will pay $10 per person, which all will go to help veterans and their families. Each paying rider will receive a commemorative pin.
Throughout the years people have waited along the route to applaud the bikers and wave American flags at them.
The police-assisted ride will go south on Haggerty road to Harris Road, west to Martinsville and then south to Willis Road. They will take Willis west to Sumpter Road and then head south on Sumpter to Oakville Waltz Road and head west on Oakville Waltz to Rawsonville Road, which they will take north to West Huron River Drive and then east into the City of Belleville and High Street.
When the motorcycle contingent gets to the Veteran’s Memorial in Horizon Park, at about 2-2:30 p.m., the Memorial Day service will begin.
At Monday’s Belleville City Council meeting, Kathie Steigerwald, representing Brown Funeral Home and Family Center, said the event started ten years ago when the World War II monument was dedicated in Washington, D.C., with the Rolling Thunder motorcycle ride.
Steigerwald said the National Funeral Directors Association raised over $4 million for the monument. She said she couldn’t go to Washington, so she decided to do it here in Belleville.
The first year the event started at Hillside Cemetery and came to the Veterans’ Monument. It was called Rolling Thunder and later she was advised that was an infringement on the copyright of the name.
An official came to see Steigerwald and he was very impressed that she had all the bikers sign waivers and that 100% of the money collected went to the veterans. He took the situation back to the national organization and it chose Belleville’s name for the event: Thunder Rolls.
Steigerwald said the event gets a lot of publicity and has been featured on all three television channels in Detroit. She said once she set up rides for some German journalists who filmed the ride and it on TV in Germany.
Steigerwald said Tom Fielder was the “welcomer” from the city for the first event and he will be back this year. She said her son, who was a Marine vet 10 years ago, spoke at the event. This year he works for Homeland Security and is not allowed to speak, although he will be here.
There will be speakers, prayers, music, a 21-gun salute, and refreshments.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem with the event,” Steigerwald told the council.