Clements/Parsons Elementary honors veterans with parade

By BRITTANY FHOLER 

Cove Leader-Press 

Students at Clements-Parsons Elementary held a drive-through parade for local veterans Tuesday morning. 

The students decorated posters and signs that they held as they waved American flags while local veterans in the community drove through the parking lot. 

The school normally holds an assembly inside each year, but due to COVID-19, the school administrators came up with an alternative plan. 

Principal Katherine Baney said that the campus serves about 175 military affiliated families.

“It’s very meaningful,” Baney said. “We couldn’t leave Veterans Day without showing our appreciation and love for our veteran families, so we decided to do a drive through parade and honor them with posters and saying thank you, and giving them breakfast and a little token of our appreciation. It’s a huge deal to us. We have veterans in our school that teach, lots of families and we appreciate all of the sacrifice and have to show them some love.”

The students worked hard on their posters in their classes. Baney said that the parade was especially meaningful for the students who are connected to the military in some way. 

“We have a lot of students whose parents are deployed, so making these posters to honor their own parents, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, it’s super meaningful, and they are very proud to hold these signs,” Baney said. 

For 4th-grader Karsen Skinner, 10, Veterans Day means helping to honor his dad, Lance Skinner, who is in the Army. 

Skinner said his dad has been deployed before and has told him about his time overseas. He added that he thought having a dad who is in the Army was pretty cool. 

He liked holding the signs up for the veterans to see, he said. 

“It makes me feel happy because I know veterans work hard,” Skinner said about joining his classmates in throwing a parade for the local veterans. “They’re hard workers. They work hard, and they need some appreciation.”

One of Clements-Parsons’ own teachers is a veteran herself. 

Heather Gutierrez, who was named the VFW Teacher of the Year in 2019, served for four years in the Army as an automated logistic specialist. 

Gutierrez said she joined the military to be able to use her GI Bill to fund her education to become a teacher. 

“It wasn’t a military program, but it was my focus,” Gutierrez said. “I knew I wouldn’t be here without joining the military.”

In the classroom, Gutierrez stresses the importance of practicing good citizenship and being mindful of what being a good citizen means, including being respectful during the Pledge of Allegiance and being respectful and accepting to other students. 

“I love what this campus does for veterans all the way around- what they do for the employees, I mean they come, and they make us art,” Gutierrez said. “Seeing them out here, I try every day to make sure that they know, especially coming from an Army town, how important that soldiers are and the contribution to our community, to our school, to our world. I love seeing them out here.”

Gutierrez said she was happy to see the school still honoring veterans, even during the pandemic. 

“This year has been nothing but adjustments,” Gutierrez said. “Normally, we have this big hoopla in the cafeteria and the soldiers and the families come in and we have breakfast, but the fact that the administrators and the counselors took time to adjust and still allow us to separate, I think, is great.”