Noxon High School delivers emotional tribute to veterans

All across the country Veterans Day tributes were made to those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

One of the brightest of those tributes was in one of the smallest towns.

With the goal of “giving something back” to those who served and in some cases gave the ultimate sacrifice to their country, students and staff at Noxon High School in the northwest corner of Montana did that and more.

“We are all so proud of what the students have done,” said NHS musical director Sari MacArthur, who supervised the effort to honor veterans.

The result of their labor was a stirring, emotional video featuring band members encircling the school’s flagpole while playing the Stars Spangled Banner. Included in the video were professional quality images of the band that were filmed from a drone hovering above the school’s front plaza.

“We all volunteered to be part of the project,” said Noxon High senior Jeriko Smith, who played the tuba during the instrumental tribute. “We wanted to give something back to the Veterans. The whole class was behind this.”

The video opens with a drumbeat cadence as band members join in from the band room inside the school. The scene quickly shifts to live scenes from the drone, which is hovering directly above the school’s American flag.

Following the conclusion of the instrumental Anthem presentation, the school’s soft-voiced choir begins singing a song about “coming home”, while pictures of local residents who served their country faded in and out on the screen.

Also shown are pictures of those who died in foreign lands and a particularly moving scene of a young child rushing to greet his fatigue-clad father who is coming down the steps at an airport on his “way home”.

“We started working on this project the first day of school this year,” said MacArthur. “The students worked on it every day in one phase or another with the goal of have it all wrapped up in time for Veteran’s Day.”

Noxon music student Madelyn Menzel, who was instrumental in creating the idea for this year’s production, said the group wanted to do something different with this year’s tribute.

“We almost always have an assembly and normally put together a program to honor the veterans,” Menzel said. “This year we wanted to do something different. This was the first time we’ve tried a video.”

With the format in mind, the group began researching all things veteran, including contacting local residents for information about their military service.

“There was a lot of research going on for this project,” MacArthur said. “The students contacted veterans from throughout the community.”

Over the course of the fall semester, the ideas were continuously brought together and refined into what became the final product. Tribute members say getting the presentation right required “lots” of video takes.

Along the way, they learned many things about veterans and their service to the country. They also revealed a strong sense of patriotism in their community.

“I got involved because I feel patriotic about this country,” said senior Jared Webley. “Patriotism is very strong, especially in this area.”

Since the video’s release, there have been more than 270 “views” of the project on line, which MacArthur said is “way more than we would normally have.”

The real driving force behind the video, which can be seen by contacting the school and requesting the video link, was perhaps best summed up by student Aubry Erwin.

“It made me happy to be part of it and let people know we cared enough about veterans to put this together for them,” she said.