Heartfelt reunion at Watersprings Veterans celebration

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - Watersprings Elementary students sang their hearts out to honor local service members and members of the armed forces at Friday's Veterans Day event. This year's event was especially meaningful to students with families in the armed forces.

Last week, Cece Sakelaris's kindergarten class had a surprise visitor, her mother, Sgt. Erin Sakelaris. After serving in Kuwait for more than a year, teachers helped her surprise Cece when she came home. 

At Friday's event, Sgt. Sakelaris shared with the students some of the Army heroes that inspired her to become a medic.

"Mary Clark was the army's, longest-serving woman and Ruby Bradley was in the Army Nurse Corps. She was captured by the Japanese. And while she was captured, she and her other female officers...continued to give care to not only Japanese soldiers that would come through, but to American U.S. soldiers."

Other student's honored their own family heroes, including Braxton Schofield who invited his 99-year-old grandfather and who served in the Marine Corps during WWII.

When teachers asked if he would need help getting to the stage,  Braxton answered, "he says he can walk, he's a marine."

Fifth-grade teacher Pam Miller has run the Veterans Day event for two years. She says you could see the student's pride in the program.

"It's a joy to see how these kids take ownership of this program. How they respect the people that are guests. We've all been anticipating those reunions and we've all been anticipating celebrating with those families. So it's great because we get to celebrate too."