As the Tennessee General Assembly enters its second week for the 2018 legislative session, one local lawmaker is hoping to secure recognition for a group of veterans who are all too often forgotten.

State Rep. Timothy Hill, who represents a portion of Carter County, is working on legislation which would install on the grounds of the capitol a Missing Man Chair honoring prisoners of war and those listed as missing in action.

“This is something that should have been done a long time ago, but has somehow been overlooked,” Hill said. “The goal is to get it placed on the capitol grounds.”

All three of the counties which Hill serves — Carter, Sullivan, and Johnson — have Missing Man Chairs on the lawns of their respective courthouses. Hill also noted a Missing Man Chair had been placed in Washington D.C. honoring POWs and MIAs.

“We want Tennessee to be a part of this,” Hill said. “In Northeast Tennessee, we honor our veterans and try to take care of them as best we can. It’s not that that attitude is not present across the state, we just need to bring awareness to this issue.”

To help secure the memorial, Hill has worked with the Rolling Thunder and other veterans organizations. “It’s quite a big group effort,” Hill said.

According to Hill, the memorial will be constructed without any cost to taxpayers. The groups involved in the effort will raise the funds necessary to cover the cost of construction and installation of the memorial, Hill said.

Among the other issues Hill feels he and his colleagues in the General Assembly will tackle this year is the opioid crisis which has been plaguing the state.

“I think the Legislature is going to try to deal with the opioid issue in greater depth than we have in the past,” Hill said.

Hill anticipates a multi-faceted approach to tacking an issue that impacts many of the state’s residents in some way.

“Everyone knows someone who has been affected, directly or indirectly, by the opioid crisis,” Hill said. “I know we can’t legislate away addiction, but my hope is we can find some avenues to begin fixing the problem.”

Many have been speculating what will happen this session with a proposal to approve medical marijuana in Tennessee, but Hill said he feels the bill will have an uphill battle in the Legislature.

“I’m not sure how successful it’s going to be,” Hill said, noting the version of the bill currently being carried had previously failed in the Tennessee Senate. “It’s got a pretty tough road ahead of it, I believe. It will have to go through three committees before I even see it.”