Holton High School in final preparations for first Honor Flight

More than three years after Holton High School initiated plans to start its Honor Flight program, plans are now being finalized for the Wildcats’ first Honor Flight this June, taking 16 military veterans and 16 student guardians to Washington, D.C.

Holton’s program will team up with programs from Lyndon and Central Heights high schools to leave on Sunday, June 5 and return the next day, according to Debbie Harshaw, HHS teacher and Student Council sponsor, who is serving as the school’s Honor Flight sponsor and coordinator.

Veterans and student guardians — who will be accompanied by Harshaw, HHS Principal Rod Wittmer and local nurse Brandy Watkins — will have the opportunity to visit Washington’s military and other memorials and witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington Cemetery.

Holton’s Honor Flight program, which Harshaw said will be similar to the program in the Jackson Heights school district, started when Carter Watkins, a 2021 HHS graduate and son of Brandy Watkins, expressed a desire to have a program at Holton and sought funding from Johnsonville Holton’s community support program.

Johnsonville donated $10,000 in funds to help Holton start an Honor Flight program, it was reported, and Harshaw noted that would be enough to support 12 area veterans and 12 student guardians on an Honor Flight trip that had originally been scheduled for early June of 2020, before plans for that trip were delayed by COVID-19.

In the meantime, more fund-raising work was done by students and others connected with the program, which received a major financial boost from the Jackson County Community Foundation’s “Giving Day” event last fall. Harshaw said donations received at that event enabled Holton’s Honor Flight to make room for four more veterans and four more student guardians.

“We don’t have to come up with any more money for this trip,” she said. “But this is going to be an ongoing thing, so we’re going to have to have more fund-raisers.”

Now, Harshaw said, the program is looking for six more veterans to fill slots on Holton’s trip, and work is currently ongoing to fill those slots.

For more on this story, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select the March 30, 2022 edition under “E-Editions.”

The Holton Recorder

109 W. Fourth St.
Holton, KS 66436
Phone: 785-364-3141
 

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