Lakeside Jr./Sr. High School will conduct a special ceremony Friday in honor of local military veterans, law enforcement and first responders.
Jenny Clark, a teacher at Lakeside, says the school conducts the ceremony each year to honor them for their service to the local community and the nation.
The Lakeside Warriors will face off against St. Mary’s, and admission is $3 for veterans, law enforcement, first responders and their families. Regular admission is $7. Clark says they’ve reached out to St. Mary’s to let them know their veterans, law enforcement and first responders are also invited to participate in the ceremony. The school asks they either come dressed in uniform or have an ID for reduced admission.
A tailgating party will begin at 5:30 p.m., with games for the whole family. At 6:30 p.m., a pregame ceremony will be held in honor of retired and active military, law enforcement and first responders. Game time is 7 p.m.
“We ask that people come dressed patriotic,” she said. “Red, white and blue.”
At half-time, Clark says they will do something special for them, including playing the anthems for each branch of the military.
Monday begins spirit week for the school as well. Monday is blue day in honor of law enforcement, Wednesday is Red Hot Wednesday, and students can wear scrubs in honor of EMS. Thursday is Armed Forces Thursday where students can wear a shirt in honor of their favorite branch of the military, a green shirt or fatigues. Friday is Patriot Day, where they will be decked out in all USA – red, white and blue.
Tuesday is picture day, so students will wear their regular school uniforms.
Each day, students will pay up to $2 a day, $1 for shirts and $1 for blue jeans. Clark says the money raised during spirit week will go to charity. This year, they will donate to Louisiana Hunters for Heroes in West Monroe where wounded warriors are taken on hunting trips.
“The money from the spirit days, the Powderpuff game and the Womanless Pageant will be combined and we’ll give it to them in December,” she said. “Louisiana Hunters for Heroes is Louisiana-based and we would love to know that our donations and our fundraising are going to help a local organization, especially these wounded warriors coming back.”
The Powderpuff game will be Oct. 20, where the girls will don a football uniform and play football. The Womanless Pageant will be Dec. 9 where the guys will dress in drag and participate in a pageant.
“It’s fun, and we just started it back this year, because the guys have had so much fun doing it,” she said.
Every year, the school chooses a different charity. The first year, they donated to Operation Homefront, where they raised roughly $4,000. Last year’s charity was the Chris Kyle FROG Foundation. The school raised about $2,000.
“We wanted to be different in that we didn’t want to focus all of our fundraising just on one thing,” she said. “St. Jude is a really big thing in Minden, and we do really good with St. Jude. Since we do these games, we pick veterans’ charities or first responder charities to give to.”
For more information, call 377-2133 or email jclark@websterpsb.org or mcole@websterpsb.org.