For the past 16 years, schoolteacher Rachel Kindel has been taking her students on a field trip – to a cemetery.
This year, though, was different.
Kindel had been teaching at Rimersburg Elementary School, and her students just walked to the cemetery in Rimersburg. When that school closed, Kindel was transferred to Sligo Elementary School, which is too far of a walk from the school to the cemetery for her and the students.
At the cemetery, the students joined with local members of the American Legion to place American flags on the graves of hundreds of veterans.
Kindel opened the tour of the cemetery at the flagpole, where the students recited the Pledge of Allegiance and observed a moment of silence.
Terry Custer, commander of American Legion Post 454 in Rimersburg, said he is grateful to Kindel for bringing her students to the cemetery every year prior to Memorial Day to place the flags.
“It is a great help to us. Many of our members are older and the kids make the job much easier,” Custer said. “I don’t know what will happen when she can no longer do this. It is a tradition I hope can continue.”