Students and staff took time out of Monday’s school day to pour into Jasper High School’s gymnasium for the school’s 2024 Veterans Day program — a ceremony that lasted roughly under an hour, in recognition of the day and its veterans, some local, being on hand.
US Senator and Indiana governor-elect Mike Braun, a 1972 Jasper graduate, delivered some brief remarks at the beginning of the ceremony.
“It for me is just an honor to be here, come back and make sure that we never forget that everything we’ve got — all the blessings to be in a place like Jasper, Dubois County, the great State of Indiana, 49 others out there,” Braun said. “We all have the same, collective freedoms — and make sure we that never forget the people who made it possible.”
Monday’s holiday came in commemoration of the 106th anniversary of the signing of the armistice which ended World War I, which became a federal holiday in 1938 and known as Veterans Day in 1954.
Jasper’s ceremony kicking things off with the national anthem and pledge of allegiance — as different performances by the JHS Band and Choir transpired during the ceremony and in between recognition of speakers and guests. Seniors Nicole Fant and Connor Fair introduced the veterans in the audience for Monday’s program.
Major Nathan Humbert, a 2006 Jasper grad, an alumnus and former teacher of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, stood in humility before those on hand to speak of his experiences.
He also paid tribute to the late Julie Schnell, one of his favorite teachers, who perished in a car accident in December 2022 and coordinated Jasper’s Veterans Day Program and gave appreciation to his fellow veterans on hand.
“Thank you to all the audience here today that have served this great nation,” Humbert said.
Senior Cameron Rumbach, a local VFW Voice of Democracy essay winner, also recited the winning piece she wrote before the crowd.
“What is democracy?” Rumbach wrote and spoke. “The textbook definition states, ‘Democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state.’ Let’s break that down; Democracy is a system of government in which state power in vested in the people. The people. Whether it be 1776 or 2024, the driving force behind our democracy has been and always will be the people.”
The JHS Band also performed music that incorporated the speech of General Douglas MacArthur’s “Duty, Honor, Country” speech, while English teacher Ross Polen read from MacArthur’s speech during the music.
Part of MacArthur’s speech talked about how The Long Gray Line “has never failed us.”
“Were (you) to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country,” spoke MacArthur, and recited by Polen Monday morning.
Everyone stood at the end of the ceremony with a rendition of Taps, and students got dismissed, in order of the grade they are in, to have the chance to walk down the bleachers and shake the hands of the veterans who attended Monday’s ceremony before heading back to class.
