Chase County School hosts Veterans Day Program Friday morning

    At 9:30 Friday, Nov. 10, the main gymnasium at CCS was full of students and members of the public who attended the Veterans Day Program.
    The program kicked off with a welcome presented by high school student Ava McNair. The VFW Color Guard followed with the advancement of the flags.
    Olivia Spady spoke on the subject of the Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen Essay Contests and introduced the winning writers, Kylee Shinn-Rowley and Sawyer Sauder.
    Shinn-Rowley and Sauder proceeded to read their entries to the crowd,
    Tyler O’Neil, Brooke Schilke, Shelby Schoenholz and Thomas Reeves performed a short skit which was narrated by Jaret Peterson and had a back-up chorus consisting of Olivia Spady, Tessa Smith, Navy Havel, Annabelle Kimble, Anna Aragon, Beau Weiss, Slade Stolz, Destry Oxford, Dylan Miscles, Joslyn Kimble, Aria McNair and Kadence Wallin.
    Emily Randall presented a Thank You video slide show with patriotic music and a variety of local military pictures of past and present enlisted people.
    Matt Murray and Navy Havel interviewed a panel of veterans, asking questions that each panelist would then answer.
    The panel consisted of  Duane Todd, Kenyan Biesecker, Eric Gonzalez and Chad Hendricks.
    Todd joined the Navy in 1972 on the gunline in Vietnam and came home in the fall of 1975. He served on the USS Providence, the USS George MacKenzie and a tugboat in the Philippines. Todd is now the Veterans Service Officer for Chase County.
    Biesecker joined shortly after graduating in 2021. He was with 11 Bravo/Infantry Airborne of the Army for two years.
    Gonzalez joined the Marine Corps at the age of 19. He served deployments to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was trained in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive Ordinance Disposal.
    Hendricks joined the Air Force in 1993 as a junior in high school. He served two years at Spangdalhem AFB in Germany with the 23rd Fighter Squadron. He had deployments to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Italy and peacetime deployments to Denmark, Tunisia and Las Vegas, finishing his military career in Salt Lake City at Hill AFB with the 34th Fighter Squadron.
    The panelists all agreed on one of the questions, noting that their favorite memories were the friendships with their fellow squad members, most of which are still ongoing.
    The junior high choir sang the Freedom song before a moment of silence was called by Tessa Smith. The Color Guard retired the Colors to the sounds of Beau Weiss, James Adle, Kylee Shinn-Rowley and Navy Smith playing Silver Taps on their trumpets. Malachi Christensen gave the closing.