Schools

Foothill Students Salute Pearl Harbor Vets

Leadership students meet survivors on their way up Mount Diablo for Pearl Harbor Day ceremony.

By Peggy Spear

Carlie Polkinghorn and Cameron Adams can hardly remember 9/11, they were so young. But thanks to a four-year tradition at Foothill Middle School, they will remember marking Pearl Harbor Day.

The girls were just two of the 30-odd leadership students who stood on the corner of Oak Grove Road and Deerpark Lane Wednesday, waving flags, carrying signs and greeting the buses of Pearl Harbor survivors as they made their way up to.

"This is a way we can show our appreciation," Cameron said.

It shows the young teens just how much their support means to the survivors and their family. "They really liked us being there," Carlie said.

This is the fourth year that teacher Peggy Shelby has organized the afternoon event.

"Every year I am moved," she said.

Shelby says that introducing middle schoolers to the survivors brings history alive.

"The families of the survivors have a motto: 'Lest we forget,'" she said. "Activities like the flag waving is one way we can make sure that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of World War II soldiers can keep the memory of Pearl Harbor alive."

The Mount Diablo beacon is lit once a year, on Dec. 7, in honor of the the day it was turned off back in 1941. Officials feared on that fateful day that its light would aid navigation of Japanese aircraft if they intended to bomb the California coast.

Peggy Spear is a parent volunteer who writes on behalf of Northgate-area schools.


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