MN State Veterans Memorial Association Elects New Officers, Talks Military Museum

The Minnesota State Veterans Memorial Association is an organization that serves as an auxiliary service to the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery in Little Falls. On Tuesday, they held a meeting at the Little Falls American Legion.

The MSVMA was founded in 1985 by soldiers in Morrison County. They saw that the land just outside of Camp Ripley would be ideal for the first Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery, Fort Snelling Cemetery being the only National Cemetery in Minnesota.

“The first cemetery in the state of Minnesota was right here in Little Falls,” said former MSVMA President Phil Ringstrom. “So that’s an honor, that’s a legacy that I think this community, this area, central Minnesota, needs to be quite proud of.”

MSVMA’s meeting last Tuesday night saw new officers elected. Ringstrom stepped down, and Joe Kaproth was elected as the new president of the organization. Kaproth’s mission will be one that stands in line with the organization’s objectives.

“One of our pillars, and earlier this evening, we just talked about it, is education,” said Kaproth. “And so we obviously feel strongly that educating and telling people about the veterans, the sacrifices they have made is vitally, vitally important.”

One other major item on the agenda was a speaker who gave information on the new state-of-the-art Minnesota Military Museum that will be built outside the gates of Camp Ripley, adjacent to the Veterans Cemetery.

“We broke ground on it about a month ago, and it’s a long process. It’s about a $38 million project just to get it built,” said Bill Wroolie, Minnesota Military Museum Board Member. “So then we’ve got to move everything from the old museum to the new museum.”

The museum board hopes that the facility will be ready by Memorial Day 2026. And because it will be built alongside the Veterans Cemetery, it will be something veterans can be extremely proud of.

“Any veteran that walks into that place has got to be just totally gratified by it,” said Kaproth. “Even the story of the acquisition of the land, the proximity to the cemetery, what a wonderful, wonderful concept.”

For veterans interested in joining the Minnesota State Veterans Memorial Association, contact James Hovda at [email protected].