Several schools in the county will be celebrating Veterans Day on Thursday with programs, assemblies and ceremonies. The schools will be recognizing the event on Thursday

Meadowview Middle School

Meadowview Middle School will hold a Veterans Day assembly at 8:15 a.m. This is the second year the school, under the organization of Chris Love, a math teacher at the school, has decided to host a program for Veterans Day.

This year’s program will feature four veteran keynote speakers, one from World War II, one from the Korean War, one from the Vietnam War and one from Desert Storm. New to this year’s event will be three student speakers. One sixth, one seventh and one eighth grader were chosen for the essays and poems they wrote for various school-wide and state Veterans of Foreign Wars contests and will read their submissions at the program.

The middle school’s chorus and band will perform musical selections and the North Surry High School Air Force JROTC will present the colors for the event.

Meadowview Middle School is located at 1282 McKinney Road.

Surry Community College

Surry Community College will, for the sixth year, host a Veterans Appreciation Day event.

All veterans and their spouses will receive a free meal in the Knights’ Grill on the college’s campus beginning at 11 a.m. The formal program will begin at noon in the Shelton-Badgett N.C. Center for Viticulture and Enology.

The program will include music by the SCC Chorus. The Surry Central High School Air Force JROTC will conduct a flag-folding ceremony and the presentation of colors. The keynote speaker this year will be Rick Page, a 23-year veteran of the U.S. Army who, upon retiring from active duty, was a professor of military science at Wake Forest University.

The event typically brings more than 120 veterans to campus each year, including current and past SCC students. All branches are represented during the program with veterans in attendance whose service dates as far back as World War II. The day provides a chance for veterans from different branches and generations to connect over their shared service while giving the general public a chance to pay tribute to their sacrifice.

North Surry High School

North Surry High School’s Air Force JROTC will sponsor a special program Thursday evening beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the school’s veteran’s memorial at 2440 W. Pine Street.

The JROTC cadets will hold a flag retirement ceremony for around 30 flags collected from across the county. The cadets will hold a dignified burning ceremony for the tattered flags before burying the ashes.

Lt. Col. John Bowes, JROTC instructor, said the cadets made it their mission last year to become stewards of the flag and have since been on the lookout for worn or tattered flags at businesses and private residences across the county. Once located, the cadets send a letter to the home or business owner requesting permission to formally retire the flag. Thursday’s ceremony will be a large-scale version of that effort.

Bowes added that the cadets will be accepting flags up through the event as well.

“It would be great if community members come out and bring flags of their own to retire. We’ll have cadets escort them up to burn the flags in a dignified manner,” he said. “It would be a huge memory for a young person if they get escorted up by a cadet to retire a flag. That’s something not a lot of young people get to experience. We would also love to see veterans out there who would like to retire a flag.”