Veterans donate to HHS choirs

Holton High School’s Notables and Concert Choir singing groups recently received $5,000 from three veterans’ groups in Holton to put toward their planned December trip to Hawaii to participate in the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade, but there is still a fair amount of fund-raising to do before the students and their entourage leave on their trip, it was noted.

On Friday morning, Aug. 15, representatives from Holton Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1367, Mary L. Bair American Legion Post 44 and the Veteran Defenders presented checks to HHS vocal music teacher Alyssa Wendel to help with costs related to sending Wendel and the Notables, along with members of the HHS concert choir and a group of chaperones, to Hawaii.

“In order for the students to attend free, we would need to raise about $46,000,” Wendel said. “We were hoping to raise about $1,000 per student, which would put us at $18,000. We have currently raised $12,940.”

Tim Unrein, VFW Post 1367 adjutant, said Holton’s veteran support groups were happy to help with the costs of the trip.

“We thought it was very historic that this little speck on the map, Holton, is sending a choir to perform there,” Unrein said prior to a Friday morning student assembly at HHS where Wendel received $3,500 from the VFW, $1,000 from the Legion and $500 from the Defenders, which Unrein described as “an auxiliary organization” consisting of “relatives and descendants of veterans.”

Unrein also pointed out during Friday’s assembly that the Notables would also be representing Milton Davis, a 1939 graduate of HHS who died while serving with the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Wendel said the Notables and Concert Choir are looking forward to walking in the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade on Sunday, Dec. 7 — the 84th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack — and will perform the national anthem along the parade route.

The next day, on Monday, Dec. 8, they are tentatively scheduled to perform on the deck of the USS Missouri, aboard which the Japanese signed a formal surrender in 1945 to end World War II. The Missouri is now a museum ship stationed along “Battleship Row” in Pearl Harbor, it was reported.

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