Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Next week's celebration of the country's armed forces members will pay tribute to this group's military contributions beginning Wednesday [Nov. 10] and draw attention to the observance of national Veterans Day Thursday [Nov. 11].
Sponsored by Mississippi State's G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery Center for America's Veterans, the weeklong event, Veterans Awareness Week, will kick off Nov. 10 with a luncheon honoring those who served in the Korean War. Col. Dwight Dyess (Ret.), civilian aid to the Secretary of the Army for Mississippi, will be the keynote speaker for the invitation-only event.
"All of our activities during Veterans Week are to bring awareness to the campus community of how important it is to honor military personnel on Veterans Day," said center director Andrew Rendon. "While Memorial Day helps us remember soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country, Veterans Day is a time to pay tribute to all service members, both former and current."
Following Veterans Day ceremonies Nov. 11, which include laying wreaths at the university's three veterans memorials, MSU President Mark Keenum will speak at a 3 p.m. public ceremony on the Drill Field, highlighting the importance of the student-veteran population.
Culminating the week's activities will be performances of the critically-acclaimed "Telling Project," an innovative performance in which military veterans and their family members, after interviews and subsequent training and rehearsal, stage the "telling" of their stories for their communities. Begun in 2008 in Oregon, the Telling Project creates opportunities for veterans to speak and their communities to listen.
The week's schedule includes:
Thursday, Nov. 11
--VA Mobile Health Clinic, Colvard Student Union, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.;
--Starkville High School Veterans Day Ceremony, 9 a.m.;
--Starkville Academy Veterans Day Ceremony, 10 a.m.;
--Starkville Community Veterans Day Ceremony, 11 a.m.;
--Wreath-laying on campus, Global War on Terror Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, and World War Memorial, 2:45 p.m.;
--MSU Veterans Day Ceremony, Drill Field, 3 p.m.;
Friday, Nov. 12-Sunday, Nov.14
--Air Force ROTC Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Vigil, Drill Field, Nov. 12, all day;
--The Telling Project, Lee Hall's Bettersworth Auditorium, Nov. 12 and 13, 6 p.m., and Nov 14, 2 p.m.
The Montgomery Center for America's Veterans was established to provide higher education opportunities to former and current service members, as well as their dependents, through programs and services largely unavailable at many other institutions. Among other missions, its staff members provide career counseling and guidance, and academic assistance and mentorship. (For more information, visit www.veterans.msstate.edu.)
For more information about the 2010 MSU Veterans Awareness Week, contact the center's outreach coordinator, David Blair at 662-325-1496 or dblair@saffairs.msstate.edu.