On Thursday, November 10, Cascade High School put on a Veterans Day assembly to honor our nation's veterans. The Leadership team puts this event on every year the day before Veteran’s Day. Participants in this year’s assembly included members of both Cascade High School and Icicle River Middle School ASBs, the leadership team, band, choir, a local BSA troop, ASL, and Speech and Debate. These students worked together as they honored the veterans in many ways and gave information surrounding the holiday. The audience included local veterans who were invited to join.
To make the assembly more festive for the holiday, as well as honor the veterans who attended, the CHS leadership class created many decorations for the event. Students created banners, door decorations, and much more. “We created the decorations to make the veterans feel honored and showed we put effort into the assembly,” stated sophomore leadership student Jocelyn Olguin. CHS art classes also displayed patriotic art created by students as another way of honoring the veterans. Every student involved with the event put a lot of work into making sure the assembly came out the way it did as well as everyone who was a part of the assembly had a part in the task of honoring the guests. The leadership team put together the set up for the assembly in the large CHS gym the period before the event was happening to make sure everything was ready to go. The event was set up so that the veterans were seated in the front row of the chairs placed in the middle of the gym while students and teachers sat elsewhere including the back chairs in the middle and the bleachers. Each chair in the front row had a custom name tag, so each veteran would know where they were seated for the assembly. When students, teachers, and guests arrived the veterans were seated in their front row seats. Veterans from the Leavenworth community attended the event including staff from Cascade School District who served. Mr. Lane, a paraeducator at Cascade High School, was one of the guests. Mr. Lane appreciated “the whole concept of explain[ing] what veterans do and honoring what they’ve done.”
Throughout the assembly, speech and debate member Breanna Loomis (11) introduced every role and the person who would be speaking or performing. “I did it because I like public speaking,” stated Breanna. The assembly started off by introducing the meaning of the famous red poppies associated with Veteran’s Day introduced by Avery Houghton, a first-year leadership student. Poppies can be a symbol of Veteran's Day often because in the poem “In Flanders Field” written by Colonel John McCrae, he writes about how poppies grew in the blood of the battle fields during World War One. As well as explaining the meaning of poppies, as another way of honoring the veteran's students created paper poppies to pin on the guest veterans to show respect and honor. “Pinning the poppies on the veterans was a great way of showing our respect for the veterans that made it through the war and that passed away to save our country,” said Georgia Hom, an ASB member from IRMS who pinned Sam Gilstrap who served in the nation’s army.
After the veterans were pinned individually by IRMS and CHS students, BSA Troop #28 presented the colors which is usually a traditional way of honor and respect. After the colors were presented, the CHS choir and ASL performed the National Anthem. “I think the choir sang really well. The dynamic of the choir is good which helps with learning music quickly,” said Isabelle Menna (11), who sang in the choir. As the choir sang the song, CHS’s American Sign Language class signed along. After the performance, Rhetta Cummings shared some history of the holiday, so that the guests were aware of the importance of honoring the people who served our country and paying respect to them on the day of the holiday.
During the event, multiple poem readings were done involving the topic of veteran's day, student Rhonan Allen read the poem “The Fiddlers Green.” Other poems included. “The Crosses Grow on Anzio” read by Mia Dries. The poem “The Unknown Soldier” was also read by Bohdy Hagedorn & Gretchen Leach. Students, teachers, and guests were then asked for their attention to be directed to student Ellie Holm and CHS staff member Mr. Lane at the front of the assembly where Ellie asked Mr. Lane questions such as, “How did you choose your branch of service?” “What was basic training like?” and other questions surrounding serving in the Marine Corps in which was the branch of service Mr. Lane spent his time serving in. Mr. Lane shared many memories, stories, and facts about what it was like to serve which gave all the people who attended a great perspective on what it is like to serve our country.
In between Mr. Lane's interview with Ellie, students made a slideshow that was presented on the large screen in the gym honoring Cascade School District staff and recent graduates and showed each branch each person is or was serving in. Ellie then continued her interview and asked him a list of questions about what he remembers about what it was like serving. As another pause in the interview, junior high ASB officers had people's attention directed towards them as they explained and gave context to each branch of service. CHS band then performed the military melody which is a song where each fragment of the song represents each branch of the military. Additionally, as band member, DW Henson performed Taps. The interview with Mr. Lane was continued. Lastly, to wrap up the assembly in a way of respect, a flag folding ceremony was performed by Bailey Unger and Isaiah Sharpe. During the ceremony, the meaning behind each fold of the American Flag was explained by members of the CHS football team.
Each performance and such that happened during the event was a way to show respect, honor, and share context and information on the importance of the holiday and honor the people who are currently or served in the U.S. military. “On behalf of the local Veterans, thank you and the students of CHS and IRMS for planning and executing a very thoughtful and sincere Veterans Day celebration. Many of the veterans were somewhat surprised and humbled by the experience,” said Mike Worden who was one of the veterans who attended the event. At the end of the assembly students were asked to write a letter to an anonymous service member which will be sent out to military members in care packages as part of Operation Gratitude. The whole event went smoothly, and the veterans seemed to greatly appreciate the work put into honoring them.
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