Those who wanted to honor slain Twinsburg police officer Joshua Miktarian began arriving today more than an hour before a scheduled procession from a Tallmadge funeral home to an Oakwood church for the funeral service.

The procession, which traveled  north on state Route 91, began  at 8:45 a.m., leaving from the Donovan Funeral Home and ending at One Mount Zion Circle in Oakwood.

Following the service, mourners will proceed to Crown Hill Cemetery, 8592 Darrow Road.

The route will be Broadway Road to Ravenna Road, then to southbound Route 91.

Scores of vehicles joined as many as 50 police cars and 20 police motorcycles that had already arrived to join the procession by 8 a.m. in Tallmadge.

Hundreds of people lined the procession route between Tallmadge and Oakwood.

Charlie Oldfield, 39, of Cuyahoga Falls sat in a lawn chair outside the Fifth Third Bank on North Avenue.

''My brother is a police officer,'' said Oldfield, an attorney who works in Youngstown. ''These guys put their lives on the line.''

His brother, Chet, is the police chief and canine officer in Powhatan Point, Ohio, along the Ohio River south of Wheeling, W.Va. His brother was scheduled to be part of the procession and was bringing his dog, Diego.

Just 20 yards away, Trisha Trego, 50, of Tallmadge was setting up her lawn chair. Trego met Miktarian last week while working for Shelley Construction Co. on an overnight highway job on Interstate 480 in Twinsburg.

Miktarian was directing traffic in the construction zone.

''We had a nice conversation. He made a big impact,'' she said.

When she heard the news that a police officer was killed, she had a sick feeling in her heart that it may have been her new friend. When she saw his picture in the newspaper the next day, she said, ''I lost it.''

She said she had to be on the procession line to pay her respects.

As the procession headed north out of town on North Avenue, Bill Thyret and his four sons saluted. Thyret, 35, said he got Elliott, 4, Isaac, 6, Luke, 8, and James, 13, up and out of bed early this morning to show them the procession.

``My brother is a Bedford police offer,'' said Thyret, who owns a landscaping business. In addition to his brother, Thyret said his stepfather, stepmother and uncle are also police officers.

``It's a rough world,'' he said.

As the procession passed McDonald's in Munroe Falls, the entire nine-person crew stood in front of the store on state Route 91.

Becky Trigilio, 52, of Kent, who manages the store, said someone signaled to her when the procession was nearing the intersection and the crew hurried outside.

``It's important to show respect,'' Trigilio said.

As the funeral was beginning in Oakwood, two ladder firetrucks, one from Cuyahoga Falls and one from Twinsburg, were set up inside the cemetery. Firefighters extended the ladders and hung a large flag between them so the funeral procession would pass below.

``It will all go underneath the flag,'' Cuyahoga Falls firefighter Mike Caporaletti said.

About 20 volunteers from the American Red Cross were stationed at both the church and the cemetery, Chad Knowlton, a disaster specialist said.

Early this morning, volunteers set up a tent at the cemetery and had about 3,500 bottles of water available for mourners in anticipation of 90 degree temperatures. In addition, Red Cross volunteers had about 4,000 bottles of water at the church.

Included among the volunteers were registered nurses and grief counsellors, Knowlton said.

At 12:50 p.m., as the funeral procession slowly inched its way through the cemetery towards the grave site, two Portage County sisters stood 50 yards behind the graves and held American flags.

Linda Dillon, the mother of Cpl. Benjamin Dillon of Edinburgh Township, an 22-year-old Army ranger who was killed in northern Iraq Oct. 6, 2007, stood with her sister, Bev Nissel of Streetsboro.

Mrs. Dillon wore her son's dog tags around her neck.

Anticipating  the emotion she would feel watching the funeral service for the fallen officer, Mrs. Dillon said,

``I'm going to stand here and cry.''