Look no further for your local Veterans Day observance gatherings happening on Friday, November 10, and Saturday, November 11.
On Friday, Mattapoisett will hold its annual Veterans Day ceremony at 11:00 am. Join the Florence Eastman Post 280 of the American Legion at Old Hammondtown School and guest speaker Professor James E. “Jay” Hickey, Ph.D., Associate Provost and retired Navy Commander. In addition, Mattapoisett native and Miss Massachusetts, Jillian Zucco will perform at the ceremony. Following the ceremony, the Mattapoisett Boy Scouts will retire old and damaged flags at Dunseith Gardens, home of Salty the Seahorse, at the corner of Route 6 and North Street.
On Saturday morning at exactly 11:00 am – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – the bells of the Mattapoisett Congregational Church, Center School in Mattapoisett, the Marion Congregational Church, the Rochester Congregational Church, the Universalist Church in Fairhaven, the Fairhaven Congregational Church, and the Fairhaven Town Hall will ring, thanks to the Mattapoisett Woman’s Club and their campaign to hold the first annual Bells of Remembrance in the Tri-Town area and beyond. The bells will ring for one full minute and are intended to provide those who hear them a moment to acknowledge and reflect on our veteran women and men and their role in protecting our country. Says the Mattapoisett Woman’s Club: “It is a time to remember and reflect on our great fortune as Americans. If you are within earshot of one of these magnificent buildings on November 11, take a minute and listen.”
Also on Saturday, November 11 at 11:00 am, Marion will observe Veterans Day with its annual ceremony to be held at Veteran’s Memorial Park at Old Landing on Front Street. (In the event of rain, location will be changed to the Sippican School multipurpose room). Hannah Moore will lead the school band in some patriotic song selections, and the keynote speaker this year is Lieutenant Heather Hutchinson of Germantown, Tennessee, who served in 2003 aboard the USS Frank Cable in Guam as information technician second class. After that tour, she completed the Navy’s Bachelor Degree Completion Program and then was at Officer Candidate School of Officer Training Command in Newport, Rhode Island, as a Supply Corps officer. In 2013, she returned to the USS Frank Cable in Guam as services officer, and then later returned to serve as an instructor at the Navy Supply Corps School. In 2015, she was selected as a Special Duty Officer, human resource professional. She is currently the deputy director of military personnel and the equal opportunity manager for the U.S. Naval War College in Newport.
Both of Lt. Hutchison’s parents served in the Navy, and her brother, Scott, served in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq and Africa. Her sister, Mhairi, was a hospice corpsman in Germany to assist in the War on Terror. Her younger brother Ronnie has served 10 years with the Navy’s Submarine Forces.
This information was compiled from press releases sent by the Towns of Marion and Mattapoisett and the Mattapoisett Woman’s Club.