Greensboro veteran marks 10th Memorial Day on Wendover Avenue

At the corner of Wendover Avenue and Landview Drive, Skip Nix turned a busy Greensboro traffic line into a place of remembrance. The 69-year-old veteran stood at attention in front of Tripps restaurant for the 10th year, wearing his full military uniform and saluting beside his father’s folded American flag.

Nix began the roadside tribute in 2015 after he retired from the Greensboro Fire Department, where he spent 35 years. What started quietly, with only his wife knowing what he planned, became a Memorial Day fixture for drivers, families and other veterans moving through one of Greensboro’s most familiar corridors. Nix has said the meaning is simple: the men and women who died in the line of duty need to be honored and remembered.

The tradition traces back to Marine veteran Tim Chambers, whose roadside salute in Washington, D.C., during Operation Rolling Thunder inspired Nix to take his own stand in Greensboro. Nix has said he hoped there would be a veteran on a corner in every city in America, reminding people what Memorial Day means. For him, the ritual has never been abstract. It is tied to service, loss and the daily obligation to remember.

The local meaning deepened through his family. His nephew, Sgt. Philip Dale Nix of the Greensboro Police Department, used to park nearby each year to make sure he stayed safe while standing so close to traffic. Sgt. Nix died in the line of duty on Dec. 30, 2023, while off duty and trying to stop a crime at a Sheetz gas station in Colfax. That loss gave the roadside tribute another layer of grief and purpose.

In 2025, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jim Vechrey joined Nix for the Memorial Day tribute. Vechrey and Nix attend church together and had recently started a ministry called Got Your Six for military members and first responders. When the two stood in the rain for two hours, the scene showed how the tribute had grown from one man’s personal salute into a wider show of fellowship and public service.

The timing also fits a larger year of remembrance in North Carolina. The state’s America 250 commemoration marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, and the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has distributed more than $2 million in grants to projects in 74 counties. As of January, 88 of the state’s 100 counties had formed America 250 NC committees. Against that backdrop, Nix’s quiet post on Wendover Avenue has remained a local reminder that public memory still depends on people willing to show up.