Onaway students honor veterans
by Angie Asam
Staff Writer
Students at Onaway Area Community Schools came together Tuesday to honor veterans. Students dressed in their red, white and blue and held a parade beginning at 9 a.m. led by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 5857. Students in the elementary school made hats for the parade through the hallways, which were decorated with signs thanking and honoring veterans.
The parade ended in the gym and once everyone had settled in, Steve Watson opened the program and introduced student council president, Cameron Penny who led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Watson then took the podium to make his opening remarks, talking about the many historic battlefields he has visited and how visiting those made him feel a connection to the many veterans. ?Veterans carry a burden for all of us,? said Watson. Following Watson?s opening remarks, a brief History Channel video ?Why we celebrate Veteran?s Day? was shown. It was about the history of Veterans Day, or Armistice Day as it was first called. It also had several interviews with people giving their opinions of what a Veteran was.
Middle school students recently completed the Patriot?s Pen contest and the top three students from Onaway read their essays aloud. Patriot’s Pen is a youth essay-writing contest endorsed by the National Association of Secondary School Principals’ contest criteria, is a nationwide competition that gives students in grades 6,7 and 8 the opportunity to write essays expressing their views on democracy. Annually, more than 115,000 students participate in the contest.
Megan Estep spoke about veterans protecting our country and every person in it, taking great risks to keep the country free for no great material rewards. ?They are satisfied with us treating them with dignity and respect,? said Estep.
?Veterans should be honored for what they have done for us. We are lucky they chose to join the military. In my opinion veterans are more important than famous people,? said Elise Arkwood during her essay reading.
Hailey Hamilton also read her Patriot?s Pen essay discussing veterans and how almost all of us have a veteran in our family. The middle school/high school choir then performed ?American Jubilee?.
Seventh grade English students recently spent time with veterans, interviewing them and recording the interviews before using the recorded material to put together a free verse poem about the veteran they had spent time with. Four students read their poems and the veteran stood if they were in attendance. Emily Glass wrote about George Freel, Jordan McKenzie wrote about Walter Szymoniak, while Rachel Nave and Tyler Welkin wrote about Cecil Peterman.
Not to be outdone by all the wonderful writings done by the middle school students, high school students in Mr. Watson?s history class who participated in the Voice of Democracy contest had the opportunity to share their work as well. The Voice of Democracy program is an audio-essay contest for high school students in grades 9-12 that annually provides more than $3 million in scholarships. The first-place winner, who competes with all the first-place VFW Department winners, receives a $30,000 scholarship that is paid directly to the recipient?s American university, college or vocational/technical school.
Hailey Kimball was the winner of the contest with her essay outlining the wars the United States has fought in over the years and the freedoms they have earned in those battles; battles fought to protect our country and freedom and those wars that were fought trying to
The middle school band followed the speaker with ?American Pie? before Mr. Watson introduced Sgt. Purcell of United States Marine Corps (USMC) as the keynote speaker for the program.
?I am here today to honor those who have served before me and share what I am going through currently serving,? said Purcell. Purcell is a Marine recruiter who spent time in Iraq. His job in the Marines is in financial administration, he oversees that the soldiers fighting on the front lines get paid.