Mayor visits School, Senior Citizens Center
Clarksville, TN – Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan addressed a patriotic assembly at Rossview Middle School, celebrated military veterans with a proclamation at Clarksville Senior Citizens Center, and attended a breakfast fundraiser for “SAFE: Soldiers and Families Embraced” on Thursday as she helped groups across Clarksville get in the spirit of Veterans Day.
“My main message this week is ‘every day is Veterans Day,’ and we should take time to thank and honor veterans and active duty soldiers every chance we get,” Mayor McMillan told the student body, teachers, and military special guests at the Rossview Middle School assembly.The assembly also heard moving essays written by students for the annual Kiwanis Veterans Day Essay Contest, and Letters to Soldiers written by students as part of a school project. Tanner Fowers, winner, and Kylie Guzman, runner up, read their essays, and Jude Ballinger and Brian Oh read their letters.
Fowers’ powerful account of her pride in her father’s military service caused more than a few teary eyes in the big crowd; and Oh’s letter, which include a brief rap song, drew gleeful cheers from classmates.
The loudest moment came when Mayor McMillan had every veteran, veterans’ spouse, and everyone with family member in the military stand. When she said, “Now give them a big hoop and a holler,” the school gym erupted in a long and thunderous ovation.
Earlier in the morning, Mayor McMillan visited the Clarksville Senior Citizen Center’s Veterans Day Fair, talked to area senior veterans and greeted representatives of a number of veterans service organization who had set up informational booths.
She also issued a proclamation at the event that reads, in part:
WHEREAS, we are pleased and honored that the Clarksville Ajax Turner Senior Center and the Clarksville community has joined together to pay tribute on this day to the dedicated veterans who have served this great nation with such distinction, both in peace time and in war, … therefore,
I, Kim McMillan, Mayor of Clarksville, Tennessee do hereby proclaim today and every day as HONOR OUR VETERANS DAY, and urge the residents of our community, and communities across the country, to honor our veterans today and every day throughout the year.
Even earlier Thursday, Mayor McMillan started her day at the “Lighting the Way Home” breakfast for SAFE, which presented its fourth annual Community Hero Award to state Senator Mark Green, a U.S. Army veteran.