Central Oregon communities’ Veterans Day parades, events honor and salute those who have served our country
Bend to have parade, special flagpole rededication; other parades set across area
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Central Oregonians are joining the nation on Monday's Veterans Day in saluting and celebrating the many veterans who have served our country and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in defending America's freedom.
The 23rd annual Bend Veterans Day Parade, organized by Central Oregon Veterans Outreach, kicks off at 11 a.m. and travels through downtown Bend, where flag-waving and saluting members of the public will be lining the streets.
This year's parade theme is "Salute to Veterans!" and the grand marshal is Vietnam War veteran Lyle Hicks.
Our Lynsey Harris interviewed Hicks and fellow veteran J.W. Terry for a Community Conversations segment.
The Bend Heroes Foundation, Scout Troop 25 and volunteers were up early to place 275 flags at Bend Heroes Memorial in Brooks Park, on the Veterans Memorial (Newport Avenue) Bridge and along the parade route.
At 3 p.m., Marine Corps League 1308 and other organizations will be holding a special rededication of the new, 41-foot-tall flagpole and flags for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Deschutes Memorial Gardens, just weeks after vandals toppled its predecessor and destroyed the flags.
The Mountain View High School Cadet Corps will unfurl and display its ceremonial 30-by-50-foot flag at the event and Chaplain John Long will provide the invocation, marking a true community effort to put a new flagpole in place by Veterans Day.
Redmond VFW Post 4108 is hosting the Veterans Day Parade for Flag City USA, which also begins at 11 a.m. Redmond Flag Committee volunteers also were up early to place some 600 flags along the parade route.
The traditional 11 a.m. start -- at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, marking the end of World War I -- is also the time for Prineville's Veterans Day Parade.
The annual Madras Veterans Day Parade begins at 2 p.m. and circles around Sahalee Park.
