Honoring our local heroes, supporting our Hoboes and spending extra classroom time with our students are among the top items on the Hobo homefront!
Laurel Hill School students will honor our veterans at 8 a.m. Nov. 12, with a performance from the Sugar Beach Choir in the cafeteria. All veterans are welcome, but they must check in at the school’s front office.
Fruit sales, benefiting the Hobo athletic department, end Nov. 22. Payment is appreciated with your order, but Coach Ronnie Smith will work with your needs if other arrangements are necessary.
After-school tutoring for third- through 12th-graders is available through 3:40 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays; transportation arrangements are available. The Okaloosa County School Board has funded tutoring for limited grade levels, but teacher Adeana Majors is donating her services for first-graders on the same days and times.
Oct. 22 was the "fall blast" for Laurel Hill School pre-kindergartners through first-graders. Thank you to all teachers and volunteers who organized the event, which included three bounce houses and castles from We Bounce. It would be great if this were an annual activity!
Oct. 23, LHS media center director Hazel Harper, along with Students Working Against Tobacco, presented an anti-tobacco show for kindergartners through fifth-graders. S.W.A.T. — including 25 sixth- through 12th-graders — used puppets and props to perform skits about tobacco use’s harmful side effects.
Oct. 24, Sparky the firedog, Smokey the Bear and the LH Fire Department, among other agencies, taught students the importance of smoke alarms, campfire safety and emergency plans.
Firefighters performed a mock vehicular extraction with the Jaws of Life, the Florida Highway Patrol brought a rollover simulator and stressed the importance of wearing a seatbelt, and Bay County Fire House representatives filled a model home with vanilla-scented "smoke" to simulate a house fire.
Air medics landed a medevac helicopter on the softball field and allowed students to board the aircraft and learn more about the chopper’s features. Did you know that the medevac team could make it from the LHS softball field to Pensacola in 10-12 minutes? Now, that's flying!
Thank you to the Florala, Laurel Hill, Almarante and Bay County fire departments.
The fire marshal, Florida Forest Service based in Baker, Okaloosa EMS, Florida Highway Patrol, Baptist Hospital life Flight, LHS School Resource Officer Joe MacLaughlin and Pastor Mike McVay from First Baptist Church of Laurel Hill also helped make these programs possible.
Amber Kelley lives in Laurel Hill. Send news or comments to Hobo.homefront@gmail.com or P.O. Box 163, Laurel Hill, FL, 32567.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: THE HOBO HOMEFRONT: Students to honor Okaloosa veterans Nov. 12