Got freedom? Thank a veteran
Fourth grades invite area veterans to 10th anniversary luncheon and program

Above, Gage and Garrick Lamb presented the colors at the 2008 Veterans Day luncheon and program hosted by Lyon County fourth grades and attended by 142.
-Bobbie Foust / Herald Ledger

This year’s Veterans Day program will be very special for Lyon County fourth graders and their teachers.
Nov. 6 will mark the 10th anniversary of the luncheon and program hosted by the fourth grades in honor of area veterans. It began 10 years ago, in Terrie White’s fourth grade classroom when she and students decided to recognize military veterans and in so doing learn the true meaning of Veterans Day.
That first year, 11 veterans including White’s father, responded to the invitation. They were joined the second year by Diane Holt’s fourth graders, and thereafter, all fourth grade students have joined in hosting the event. Last year a record 142 veterans and their spouses attended.
Fourth graders will serve lunch to the veterans and their guests at 11:30 a.m. in the elementary school gym, followed by a patriotic program. Students have been in rehearsals for several weeks.
The program also will be presented at 1 p.m. Nov. 5 for parents and the public.
Three area veterans discussed their military service and their plans to attend the program last week while drinking coffee at a local restaurant.
Ron Holt, 62, said the program has spread to Caldwell County Elementary School. Inspired by the program in Lyon County, former Principal Kay Lane organized a similar program at her new school, Caldwell Elementary.
“Not only have I been there eight years with Lyon County, but last year was the first year that this was put on in Caldwell County and I was invited to participate in it,” Holt said. “I had a granddaughter going through the fourth grade at that time. We had a luncheon up there and had about 18 veterans, but after that they had a program in the gym, and that gym was full when the kids started putting on the program.
“Kay Lane implemented the Veterans Day program up there,” he said. “She took the program from down here up there, and now they are having another program this year, and it’s all derived from Terrie starting this one over here when she had 11 veterans there the first year including her Dad,” Holt said.
Holt said the program has educated Lyon County students about the sacrifices military veterans have made to ensure the freedoms all Americans enjoy.
“I’ve been associated with (the program) eight years now, and right now you’re seeing kids come out of high school who can even tell you what a veteran is,” he said. “I’ve seen a time they couldn’t tell you what a veteran was.”
Holt is a native of Caldwell County but has lived and worked in Lyon County the last 40 years. He served 13 years in the U.S. Army Reserve with several tours of active duty.
He was a drill sergeant.
“I went in the U.S. Army Reserves in 1968; I was in a training division, which is made up of units here in Kentucky — the 100th Division,” he said.
Being a drill sergeant had its ups and downs, he said. “It’s interesting when we were dealing with trainees, we were dealing with people from all over the United States, even from Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and places like that,” he said. “I enjoyed it as long as we were dealing with the infantry end of it.
“Today I stop and wonder how many of those young trainees actually pulled through — again it was in the Vietnam era ... but when you are training people like that, you are training them because their life depends on what you teach them,” he said. “And we took it real seriously on account of that.”
Holt’s father, Hobart Holt, 82, served with the U.S Army Air Corps in Germany immediately after combat ended in World War II.
“There just wasn’t much going on, all the stores were closed,” he said. “I was stationed at Fritzlar.”
The elder Holt, a member of that “greatest generation,” who was just 18 at the time, said Fritzlar wasn’t damaged badly during the war. But another nearby town he called Castle, “was lying on the ground.”
He too plans to attend the fourth grades’ luncheon and program.
Terrance R. Carlin, 68, of Watertown, N.Y., home of the famed 10th Mountain Division, also plans to attend.
Carlin spends winters in Lyon County, and this will mark the second time he has attended the luncheon and program.
“It’s a great program, it’s great that they are honoring the veterans,” he said, noting it’s a learning experience for the students. Carlin thinks today’s students should be educated about the sacrifices veterans have made to ensure America’s freedom.
“Being a veteran of Vietnam, I saw a lot of negative when they came back, and I’m dead set against that, and I won’t let it happen to the veterans of today,” he said. “Any time I see a veteran, I go up and thank him for what they are doing. I have seen a change. I think there’s a lot more respect from the people who live here and from the kids also.”