By Keith Gushard

Meadville Tribune

HAYFIELD TOWNSHIP — “It irritates me,” said Fred Cunning-ham, Crawford County’s director of Veterans Services.

At least four copper veterans markers were taken from graves in a cemetery on Grange Center Road in Hayfield Township — a large cemetery across French Creek from Saegertown Borough — according to Pennsylvania State Police at Meadville. The thefts of the markers, which stand about a foot and a half high, were discovered Thursday.

Cunningham said he was aware of a theft of markers in the Pittsburgh area, but it’s the first he’s heard of anything happening locally.

The markers are provided by the government at no cost to the veteran, but the copper markers cost about $50 each.

“We won’t replace them (with copper ones) because they’ll get stolen,” Cunningham said. “We replace them with aluminum pot metal ones.”

The aluminum markers cost about $6 each.

The thefts may be sparked by about a 50 percent rise in scrap metal prices in the past year.

Copper, which was going for about $2.10 per pound a year ago, now fetches $3.25 a pound; while brass, which was going for $1.20 per pound a year ago, now brings $1.70 a pound, according to Norm Eaton, president of Meadville Metal Co.

His firm doesn’t take the markers as scrap because they’re stolen.

“My staff is well aware of it,” he said. “I don’t buy them.”

Eaton can’t remember the last time someone tried to sell one of the markers to his firm.

“They’re stealing something they can’t sell,” he said.