Students, veterans enjoy first HHS Honor Flight

More than two years after plans for Holton High School’s first Honor Flight were first put to paper, a group of 16 local veterans and 16 HHS students, past and present, boarded a plane at Kansas City in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 5, for a flight to Washington, D.C. to visit military and war memorial sites.

The next day, they returned to Holton to crowds of cheering family members and friends who surrounded Holton’s Town Square to give them a hero’s welcome.

For the participating veterans, all of whom served during the Vietnam War era, the experience was a 180-degree “change in sentiment,” according to Jim Brown of Holton, one of four U.S. Air Force veterans who participated in the trip.

“When I flew back into Travis Air Base in San Francisco, a bunch of people were throwing rotten eggs and tomatoes,” Brown said. “And we’re out there thinking, what the hell did we do?”

Rick Bottle of Holton, another Air Force veteran, agreed, noting that wherever he and his fellow veterans went on this trip, everyone waved with “all their fingers… not just one.”

“When we got off the plane in D.C., people were very nice and cordial,” Bottle added. “They were shaking our hands.”

It was part of an experience that veterans participating in the first HHS Honor Flight — originally scheduled for the summer of 2020 but delayed due to COVID-19 — agreed was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that veterans who haven’t yet participated in an Honor Flight should sign up for.

“I know a couple of guys who didn’t go, and they need to go,” Bottle said. “To all the veterans who haven’t been a part of this, I would say they’re shortchanging themselves if they don’t go on this trip.”

Debbie Harshaw, HHS teacher and Student Council sponsor serving as the HHS Honor Flight coordinator, agreed that it was an essential experience — albeit an exhausting one — that prepared her for future Honor Flights.

“I had a lot of help from the Lyndon and Central Heights mentors,” Harshaw said, referencing the two schools who also sent veterans and student guardians on the trip. “It scared me to think that I would have to do this without them, and I am going to have to do this the next time. But it’s OK. I’m prepared.”

Prior to the trip, HHS students — all of whom had Student Council ties, Harshaw said — got to know their veterans, and some, like recent graduate Darby Ireland, helped with fund-raising for the originally-planned trip. Ireland was charged with looking after Leonard Swindale of Holton, a U.S. Army veteran.

“The best part about getting to know the veterans was hearing their stories and learning about their experiences,” Ireland said. “They had a lot to share.”

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