The High Country will have a host of Veterans Day events on Nov. 11.
Appalachian State University will commemorate the dawn of the national holiday at 7:30 a.m. The ceremony will be held at the Veterans Memorial located on the west side of Dougherty Administration Building. A continental breakfast will follow in the Dougherty Administration Building lobby. The public is invited.
Guest speaker will be retired Lt. Col. Ron Branch. Branch is a former chair of the Department of Military Science and Leadership at Appalachian. He currently is general manager of University Highlands student apartments.
A native of Fayetteville, Branch earned his bachelor's degree from Appalachian. He also was a cadet in the ROTC program on campus. His 24-year military career included assignments in Korea and Germany and U.S. assignments in Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Washington, D.C., where Branch served with the Joint Staff in the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon.
His awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, Joint Meritorious Service Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal, and the North Carolina and Virginia Meritorious Service medals. He earned the Airborne, Ranger, Pathfinder and Expert Infantryman badges.
A Veterans Day event will be held at the Boone Mall, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The ceremony will open with a performance by the Watauga Community Band, featuring period musical pieces from World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and the modern era.
At 11:11 a.m., eleven bells will ring to signify the end of World War I. The local Girl Scouts will retire old flags and properly dispose of them at 11:30 a.m.. Organizations scheduled to be represented include The Veterans of Foreign Wars, The High Country Military Officers Association, Disabled American Veterans, the 1451st Transportation Company of the N.C. National Guard, The Marine Corps League and the Appalachian State University Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program. Several groups will also be recruiting members.
For more information on the event, call Nick Friedman at (828) 297-5198.
Veterans Day, originally called Armistice Day, was established to honor veterans who had served in World War I. In 1954, Congress expanded the observance to include all U.S. veterans.