Goodrell Welcomes Special Guests to Honor Veterans
Goodrell students and staff stand proud and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the school’s Veterans Day event.
Goodrell Middle School’s annual Veterans Day observance got off to an early start this morning when a crowd gathered around the flagpole on the front lawn at 7:15 and listened to the chaplain from the 132nd Fighter Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard, Captain David Doty, talk about sacrifice. Many of those assembled to re-pledge their allegiance were students and staff with loved ones currently serving in the military.
Following the ceremony outdoors the regular school day began with an assembly in the auditorium at which the featured speaker was Lt. Col. Wes White, a Goodrell alum retired from a career in the U.S. Army who was serving at the Pentagon when it was struck by terrorists on 9/11 in 2001. Friends of his were among those killed in the attacks that day. Later that year Goodrell P.E. teacher John Walling established the school’s annual tradition of an appreciation day for veterans. Though not a military veteran, Walling is certainly a grateful American who takes seriously the job of raising future generations of citizens. He was a classmate of Lt. Col. White’s at Goodrell, East High School and Iowa State University, where the two were also roommates. One of the veterans in attendance this morning at Goodrell was Walling’s 84 year-old WWII veteran father, Bill.
Students produced and performed two brief plays as demonstrations of veteran appreciation and Goodrell teacher Sarah Knobloch, whose son is deployed overseas in harm’s way, read a reflective essay from the perspective of the American flag before the crowd rose and sang the National Anthem a cappella.
At Goodrell, graduating 8th graders work on a legacy project that symbolizes their goal of leaving the school better than when they arrived. Walling pointed out that the original 48-star flag that flew at Goodrell when the school opened in 1955, prior to the addition of Hawaii and Alaska as the 49th and 50th states, now hangs in the main office in a frame that was crafted last year by Jared Hall and his father Jeff, an industrial arts teacher at East who was another of Walling’s classmates there and at Goodrell, for Jared’s legacy project.
Someday John Walling, too, will leave Goodrell. When he does his legacy there will already be longstanding; appreciation for the service of veterans and everything they protect and preserve for the rest of us.
