Ceremony brings students, veterans together

 For the 23rd year, stu­dents and staff at Maple Point Middle School in Langhorne hon­ored local vet­er­ans with a cer­e­mo­ny, held on Friday, November 8 this year. This event brought over 65 local vet­er­ans togeth­er with eighth-grade stu­dents for a mov­ing cer­e­mo­ny that fea­tured stu­dents and guest speak­ers, musi­cal per­for­mances and a Roll Call of Honor for each attend­ing vet­er­an. A group pho­to of the vet­er­ans and stu­dents was tak­en around a large American flag paint­ed on the field out­side the school fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.

This tra­di­tion was start­ed after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 as a way to show uni­ty and appre­ci­a­tion for the sac­ri­fices made by vet­er­ans. Some of the stu­dents have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to min­gle with the vet­er­ans before the cer­e­mo­ny, con­duct­ing video inter­views and talk­ing with them about their expe­ri­ences. Featured speak­ers includ­ed U.S. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, PA Senator Frank Farry and PA Representative Joe Hogan. The fea­tured guest speak­er was Army Specialist Thomas Pease, who is a Maple Point and Neshaminy grad­u­ate who attend­ed the same cer­e­mo­ny sev­er­al years ago.