The school will put on its inaugural Veteran’s Day ceremony on Nov. 11 during second period. The ceremony will be held at the stadium and will feature performances from band, choir, and orchestra, as well as guest speaker Ron Branson, former mayor of Carrollton and Vietnam veteran.

Planning for the ceremony began at the start of the school year after the district encouraged individual schools to commemorate the holiday. Commander Jeff Williams, Benjamin Stroud, and Ryan Heitzman were all a part of the committee that brought this event together.

“It’s a celebration of all the veterans and all of the community, not just Hebron, coming together and celebrating what [veterans] have done for our country and providing our students with an opportunity to learn a little bit about what it truly means to be veteran,” Heitzman said.

The first challenge for the committee was finding a location to fit the school’s ever-growing student population. Once that was figured out, it was “smooth sailing” from there.

“It’s been really great [working in the committee],” Heitzman said. “I mean there are things that go into this that you wouldn’t even imagine. Everybody was very receptive and I really appreciated that.”

The ceremony will start with the presenting of the flags and National Anthem, followed by the performances, then the guest speaker, and finally an overview of what Veteran’s Day truly means.

“I think it is our job as an older generation to teach the younger generation about the past,” Stroud said. “I just hope that [the ceremony] will help people understand what the armed services do to help the country.”

According to Williams, taking time out of a school day to respect those who have served is very meaningful, especially with the waning number of veterans nowadays.

“Mr. Finch has gone to great lengths to make this thing special, and I think that’s awesome,” Williams said. “We have so many other things going on and Mr. Finch has taken time and dedicated an entire period to recognize our vets. I think that’s just an incredible thing.”

Though the school doesn’t have a large community of veterans, Williams hopes to instill a greater appreciation for them in the students.

“My hope is that there’s a greater appreciation among this generation of what it took to get here,” Williams said. “I think that some people take for granted what veterans have done for us. We get to make our own choices, we get to do our own job, you don’t have to join the military and you don’t have to get drafted. Well, there’s a reason you don’t have to do all those things, and it’s because of our veterans.”