HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Denise Choyce poses in front of photos on the Wall of Heroes at the entrance to the Pahrump Walmart. Advertisement

Denise Choyce could be a victim of her own success.

Five years after beginning the Wall of Heroes at the two entrances to the Pahrump Walmart store, containing photos of servicemen and women, Choyce had to run a notice in the newspaper the wall is full.

"It's just amazing to me how many people enjoyed seeing that wall, out-of-town people who see it. They just can't believe our Walmart has done something like this," Choyce said.

The count is now 486 photos. Several have black bands across them, to note soldiers killed in battle.

"We just don't have anywhere to put them yet," Choyce said. "We just recently had a family that moved here from New Jersey. Their nephew was killed in Iraq in August. They asked to put their nephew's picture up. We made an exception."

Choyce said she will leave a little room for those special circumstances.

"The people, I think they can go in and understand it's just totally full right now. As far as when our new Walmart store comes, I don't know if they're going to let me do it in there," Choyce said.

Choyce began the project in 2004 after seeing a small display at Walmart with about eight five-inch by seven-inch photos of soldiers on a piece of cardboard. She was upset the display would only be up for two weeks. Choyce confronted Walmart store manager Kevin Pape.

"I said you only honor our veterans for two weeks? That's so sad because we should be honoring them every day," Choyce said. "I said 'let's put them up, I'll take care of the wall.'"

Pape gave her encouragement to take on the project, she said.

Under the Wall of Heroes program, people could donate an 8-by-10-inch photo and put $3 on the back to pay for the frame. Choyce checked the Walmart service counter three times every week for photos, supplied the brass plates and hung them up.

Her son, James Choyce, was in the U.S. Army infantry in Iraq when the project began in 2004.

"It helped me not miss him as much because it kept me so busy on keeping everything ready for our wall," Choyce said.

The first group of 20 photos went up right after New Year's in 2005, she recalled. Then there were another 20 photos. It took off from there. The spring of 2005 was a busy time, she recalled, with many veterans of older wars posting their pictures.

"When you get young soldiers who got out of the military, they will salute these pictures," Choyce said. "I'm just amazed to see people salute these pictures to say thank you for what you've done."

Jenny Liakopoulos, wife of former Nye County Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos, helped put up the Wall of Heroes with the organization Support Soldiers in Need (SSI). During a commemoration ceremony in March 2006, members of the Pahrump Valley High School ROTC and the Nye County Sheriff's Office color guards dedicated the display.

But things later soured between Choyce and the Liakopouloses, who wanted to move the photos from Walmart to the veterans memorial building planned at Chief Tecopa Cemetery in 2007. Choyce raised 1,200 signatures on a petition in two and a half days objecting to the move. Choyce recalled Liakopoulos even demanded Pape take the photos down.

"I thought that was really, really morbid. A lot of these troops are coming home. To put them up at the cemetery was not a very good idea," she said.

Choyce thought one solution could be a television screen at the entrance to Walmart, displaying the photos. But she said, "People would probably be here for hours trying to search for the name."

The photos are high enough on the wall at Walmart, a scissor lift would be required to post any more and have to be driven by a licensed person, Choyce said. She thought about extending the wall of heroes along a narrow passageway near the north entrance but there are no security cameras posted there.

New members have been appointed to the Pahrump Veterans Memorial Advisory Board. Incoming chairman Alan Bigelow said they haven't decided what to put in the vacant building at the memorial site in Chief Tecopa Cemetery.

"We are getting ready to push forward on the columbarium and the burial plot. We're going to be looking for donations to start in mid-December," Bigelow said. He is a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Army and Nevada National Guard.

The veterans would have their own section of the cemetery, Bigelow said.

"Once it's done, this project, it will be something you can compare against Arlington or Boulder City," he said.

When it comes to displaying photos inside the building, Bigelow said, "We haven't dismissed that, but we haven't gotten a real committed sense of direction. A lot of guys were thinking about doing some displays for each branch of the service as well as being able to use it for an area for ceremonies during inclement weather.

"There still a ton of ideas being kicked around. We want to pick the right one because this project should be a real cornerstone for Pahrump."