Saluting service

PALMER — Back in 2011, Tom Spangler, Student Success Coordinator at Mat-Su College at 28-year Air Force veteran, decided to hold a Veterans Day event at the school.

It was quite modest.

“They really didn’t have a ceremony, so we started one around the flagpole the first couple of years,” Spangler recalled. “The third year, we got into the Glenn Massay Theater — got to come out of the elements… It’s grown from about 20-25 people standing outside by a flagpole to about 180 we had attend last year.”

Not only have the number of attendees increased in those years, the notoriety of guests have as well. Last year, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan participated, and today at the Massay Theater, senior Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski will give the closing speech.

Also present at the ceremony will be the family of Pfc Hansen Kirkpatrick, who was killed in service July 3 in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.

“His family all lives out here in the Valley and they will be taking part in the ceremony,” Spangler said. “The Colony High School JROTC will fold the flag and at the end, they will present it to the family.”

Spangler said the JROTC from Wasilla High School will also participate, and he said Gene Horner, the official Taps bugler at Fort Richardson National Cemetery, will play Echo Taps, alongside a 17-year-old Valley bugler.

“Two buglers play and one follows the other one, so it sounds like an echo off in the distance,” Horner said of the distinction between Echo Taps and the familiar original, a staple in U.S. military funerals since 1864. “Taps is important because it’s closure. You have a funeral ceremony and at the very end the flag is opened up and Taps is played — it’s closure.”

Murkowski’s address will close the ceremony set to start at noon and complete by about 1 p.m.

Spangler has been pleased with the growth of the event.

“It’s positive word of mouth and I think it’s done very professionally,” Spangler said. “Whenever possible, I reach out to any element of the veteran community.”

Horner said he’s been part of it every year but last year when he received an award at the National Guard Armory ceremony.

The Valley’s actual Veterans Day ceremony is set for Saturday at noon at the Wall of Honor off Trunk Road near the hospital. Horner said the event Spangler has started makes paying tribute to veterans more amenable to those who might have a difficult time with late fall weather.

“On the 11th of November I’ve seen it 5-below and 25-above with 100 mph wind,” Horner said. “Tom was originally doing it to emphasize the veterans program at the college, but also, it’s an indoors venue… Some older people, myself included — that outside ceremony beats them up.”