By Gary Collins/managing editor
The NE Student Ambassadors want you! The Ambassadors are extending an invitation to all students, staff or faculty members who have served in the Armed Forces.
Military veterans from across the district will be honored with a Southwestern-style dinner at the Veterans Service Award Banquet on NE Campus in the NSTU Center Corner 6-9 p.m.
Veterans can invite a guest to accompany them but need to RSVP before the Friday, April 18, deadline. To RSVP, call Lisa Uhlir at 817-515-6928 or e-mail lisa.uhlir@tccd.edu.
Keynote speaker at the banquet will be Air Force reserve Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley with guests Richard Ward, mayor of Hurst, and Lt. Col. Chris “Slash” Yancy, who will provide information about the Operation Care program in which TCC participated.
The Trinity High School choir will be present with a Color Guard.
Uhlir, NE associate professor of government, said the veteran status applies to any student or employee of TCC who has served in the military not just Iraq or Afghanistan.
The idea for the recognition began this fall during the Operation Care project spearheaded by the ambassadors to collect items to send to U.S. troops. After the pallets arrived in Afghanistan the Ambassadors received photos of the supplies being distributed to the Afghan population.
“The students in the Student Ambassadors after we finished Operation Care were in a meeting and some of the students said, ‘Hey, why don’t we do this?’ And we kind of bounced it around for a bit,” Uhlir said.
The idea was simple—to honor the veterans—but reaching out to the veterans would be more difficult from finding a caterer to finding guest speakers.
“The hardest thing with this was trying to get the word out to the veterans because we don’t have a specific list of names and addresses,” she said. “So we’re trying to use different media forms to let veterans know that we’re here and having this for them and get them to contact us.”
