MERLE MONAHAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
merlemonah@aol.com

SEDLEY—The Military Appreciation Day hosted by the Sedley Recreation Association on Saturday was a success, despite a slight decrease in attendance.

“People were coming and going all day,” said association president Anita Felts, “so it is hard to estimate how large the crowd was. We do know there were fewer people here, however.

“But the weather was perfect and all the events we had planned went off as scheduled,” she added.

Starting at 8:30 a.m., a 5K/Fun run took place around the town. It was followed by the annual parade featuring the Windsor High School marching band, Sedley and Courtland fire trucks, Southampton High School homecoming queen, Jimmy Creasey and his train, old automobiles, patriotic floats and a couple four-wheelers, to name a few.

During the afternoon, several games and demonstrations took place at the ball diamond. They included a baseball homerun derby, a pageant of dogs, a canine demonstration and a football challenge.

A highlight of the afternoon was the veteran’s salute, where Felts and several assistants removed small flags bearing the names of many of the area’s veterans from one of the patriotic floats and pinned them to a large board on the side of one of the buildings.

Felts read the name on each flag, and noted that a brass plaque would eventually be designed for each name.

The flag-raising ceremony was then performed by Boy Scouts from Troop 125, Hunter and Tyler Kesselring and Boyd Felts, who raised the flags of the United States, Virginia and Sedley.

To round off the festivities, hamburgers, barbeques and beverages were available for lunch, while a number of booths featuring Christmas decorations and other items for the coming holidays were placed around the grounds.