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Legacy of Honor Program 

Vanessa Lopez is a 5th grade student at Pulaski Elementary and was nominated for Character Counts! Student of the Month by her guidance counselor, Nicole Purdy.  Ms. Purdy nominated Vanessa for consistently displaying the six pillars of character:  trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.  In her 12 years as a student counselor, Ms. Purdy stated that she has never been so impressed with the overall great character of a student.  Vanessa comes from a military family and her father, a sergeant major, is currently deployed.  This is Vanessa's first year at Pulaski Elementary and she has made a great impression on her teachers and the other staff.  She has never missed a day of school or been tardy all year, nor has she lost a single point with the class discipline system for bad behavior - an excellent example of citizenship!  She is in the gifted education program and has made high honor roll the first two semesters of school.  By showing respect to everyone, Vanessa has become a trusted role model to her peers. She even designed the Character Counts! t-shirts they wear at Pulaski Elementary on spirit day.  Vanessa has shown a great deal of caring for others by becoming one of Pulaski's first Peer Mediators.  She works with peers to resolve problems showing others that they can work things out by talking and not fighting.  She helps peers understand fairness to work out their differences with compromise.  Vanessa joined the 2012 Girls on the Run fall team.  She is one of the most positive girls in the group and took to running right away, even competing with her mom in the Savannah Bridge Run and other local races.  As Ms. Purdy says, "Vanessa is truly remarkable".

Ms. Marty Price donated this B-29 Gunsight to commemorate the decade the Eighth Air Force flew B-29s.

In July 1945, several months after the unconditional surrender of Germany, it was announced that the Eighth Air Force would set up future headquarters on Okinawa under the command of Lieutenant General James H. Doolittle.  Here the Eighth Air Force's mission was to organize and train new Bomb Groups equipped with the B-29 Superfortresses for combat against Japan.  The Eighth also had long range P-47N and P-51H Fighter Groups under its command to provide escort for the B-29s.  In the planned invasion of Japan, the Eighth Air Force would fly B-29 raids from Okinawa in coordination with the Twentieth Air Force operating from airfields in the Mariana Islands.  General Doolittle arrived on Okinawa on 16 July 1945.  At a 25 July press conference he announced that bombing missions would start in late August.  On 30 July Major General Earle E. Partridge and Brigadier General Patrick W. Timberlake joined Doolittle.  Upon their arrival General Partridge was named deputy commander while General Timberlake became chief of staff.  Except for a few key leaders including both General Doolittle and General Partridge, General Henry H. Arnold had determined that the men who had served in the Eighth Air Force in England should not be redeployed to the Pacific.  As a result, most of the air depot units came from India while the bomb and service groups were newly formed in the United States.  World War II ended with Japan's unconditional surrender before the Eighth flew its first combat mission in the Pacific theater.  The Eighth Air Force had completed its World War II mission.  It had successfully carried out a daylight strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany and had been poised to do the same over Japan.  As the Eighth Air Force celebrated its fourth anniversary on 28 January 1946, its new responsibility was to preserve peace in the Pacific.  In June 1946 the Eighth Air Force relocated to MacDill Field, FL, as part of the new Strategic Air Command (SAC).  Next in November 1950 the Eighth moved to Carswell AFB, TX, and during the Korean War deployed its 27th Fighter Escort Wing.  In June 1955 SAC moved the Eighth to Westover AFB, MA.  To transition to the jet age, the Eighth replaced its  B-29, B-50, and B-36 bombers with B-47s and B-52s. 

Article Courtesy of Savannah Morning News

A few weeks ago, we participated in Savannah Magazine's Behind the Veil bridal show as a vendor to promote our new catering company.

My staff and I spent many hours debating what we thought would be the most effective display for our booth. In the end, we decided that simple elegance was what we wanted to convey. If I were just a caterer, that would have been the end of it, but I'm also a writer and words need meaning to me.

What makes an event elegant?

I decided to poll several people in various positions to find out what they think makes an event "elegant."

The answers were as varied as the people I asked.

Elegance appears in the form of certain foods to some and in décor and location to others. Then there are other camps that say it is the attire worn by the guests. Still others said the type of event sets the stage for elegance.

My favorite response came from my friend Susan, an event coordinator: "Elegance is in the eye of the beholder." Our culture, exposure and experiences teach us the definition of words like beauty and elegant.

In the process, I also searched top caterers in large cities like New York and Washington, D.C. I read hundreds of menus and scrolled through galleries until I was cross-eyed.

It was enlightening, but I came away thinking that in some circles, the size of the wallet of a client defines elegance.

In the end, I felt a bit like Solomon. Vanity, all vanity!

As I reviewed answers, pictures and menus, I thought of the young and upcoming host and hostesses who are still in the process of defining how their generation will define elegant.

The young men and women to whom God has given the gift of hospitality are the same young men and women who have struggled through years of recession and some of the highest unemployment rates in our history.

Teri Bell is co-owner of Miss Sophie's Marketplace at the Mighty Eighth in Pooler. 

Sophiesmarketplace.com

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