ACE students tend to veterans’ graves at Snyder Cemetery
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Snyder Junior High School students (l-r) Makayla Deleon, Mela Ramos and Michael Cheyne brush dirt off a grave marker at Snyder Cemetery. Students of the Afterschool Centers for Education program were planting flags on veterans’ graves and sprucing up the cemetery Friday in recognition of Veterans Day.
Throughout the course of America’s history, brave individuals have stepped up and offered their lives to defend our ideals of freedom and justice.
A group of students from Snyder Junior High School honored fallen military heroes Friday by placing small flags on their graves in Snyder Cemetery.
“The students will be honoring the sacrifices of these individuals as well as sacrificing their own time and effort to carry out this project,” said Charlotte Clifton, adult sponsor of the Afterschool Centers for Education (ACE) program at SJHS.
The event was originally scheduled to take place earlier in the week, but heavy rains caused the event to be postponed.
Snyder Cemetery Association President and U.S. Army Vietnam veteran Troy Botts was on hand to share some of his experience with the ACE kids.
“Don’t let people pick on people and hurt them,” Botts told the students before they spread throughout the cemetery to place the flags. “That’s actually part of the freedom that everybody gave their lives for. We’ve got a great country, the greatest country in the world, the United States of America, because we can do all these things that other people can’t do. In Korea about two years ago, they shot a mother — executed her — because they caught her passing a Bible to her friend. We don’t have those things here because we fought for freedom. It’s really awesome that y’all are coming out and putting flags on the veterans graves. So many men and women gave their lives for us so we could be free.”
As they spread throughout the cemetery, a few students took a moment to share their thoughts about the project.
“We’re learning in Ms. Clifton’s class that they have made sacrifices, and they did some really great things, like winning a war or giving us a free country, and we learned about the Medal of Honor,” said ACE student Nathan Armenta.
“We like learning about stuff and we try to respect people, and how they sacrificed for our country and for our freedom,” added fellow ACE student Israel Martinez.
“We’re brushing the dirt off of some of the grave markers,” said Mela Ramos, a student in the ACE program. “We’re also placing these flags on the veterans’ graves.”
Clifton said that the students are trying to locate all veterans’ graves during their time at the cemetery, but the group has taken steps in case they accidentally overlook a veteran or two.
“We want everybody to see what great students and good kids we have at Snyder Junior High School,” she said. “We are making every effort to place a flag at the grave site of each of the veterans buried here at this cemetery, and if by chance we miss somebody, it was inadvertent, and we are going to leave some extra flags with the caretakers here. We want every veteran to be honored.”