GHS Legion Club to receive award

The Gunnison High School Legion Club will receive an esteemed National Philanthropy Day award for their volunteer work supporting both living and deceased veterans in the Gunnison Valley. This award, and the accompanying $3,000 in prize money, will be presented to the club members and sponsors on Nov. 6 in a formal ceremony at the Denver Performing Arts Center.

The GHS Legion Club was formed in 2022 by recently retired social studies teacher and Marine veteran Mark High –– along with former math teacher and co-sponsor Chris Rush and five initial students –– as a way to inspire patriotism and facilitate charitable action in the community.

“I was searching for a way to engage students with the veterans of the community,” said High. “I asked myself, what can we do to instill patriotism? Kids didn’t want to have lectures about patriotism, they wanted to ‘do’ patriotism.”

And thus, a service-based club that does good for the community and country by supporting the needs of veterans was born.

The second president of the GHS Legion Club Udev Vijay summarized the club’s mission as “demonstrating patriotism through service.”

“[The club] is about patriotism through service, not glorifying the military or encouraging kids to join,” High said. “We agreed from the beginning of the club that our mission is service. Nothing else.”

Since 2022, the club has grown to 12 members who meet each week on Thursday to brainstorm ways to provide acts of service to both living and deceased veterans of the Gunnison Valley. These acts are then carried out during free time on days when students are not in school.

“Our primary achievement has been the work we have accomplished at the Gunnison Cemetery,” said High.

The club has spent numerous hours working with local cemeterian John Vader to restore and clean 17 military headstones that had sunk into the earth. Working with Gunnison County Veteran’s Service Officer Steve Otero and the Veterans Administration, the students replaced a cracked headstone from a WW1 veteran, raked leaves, maintained cemetery grounds, and helped to create concrete bases for brass memorials for recently deceased veterans.

“It’s really satisfying to see the respect kids have when they are repairing a gravestone, they are very somber and respectful,” said current sponsor of the Legion Club, Wyatt Phipps. “They can tell that what they’re doing is a really generous thing and that historical restoration is really important. You can see the happiness from kids after they’re done.”

The word about the Legion Club’s service has gotten out and has also prompted requests for their assistance in other local cemeteries in Pitkin, Powderhorn and Tin cup. In Tin Cup, students were asked to help transport log rails to the top of one of the three knolls used as a cemetery to create a fence.

Phipps reflected on how working in the cemeteries instills respect in the children for veteran heroes. It is also a chance for the students to connect with our nation’s history and reflect on the people involved in its events.

“It’s kinda neat when you go to a cemetery with kids, they are very respectful and it’s kind of eye opening [for them]. There’s a lot of history that can be told through the tombstones, learning about diseases that come through etc. It also inspires the kids to go do research or learn more about that particular time period or branch of the military or the battles happening at that time and connects the kids to history.”

In addition to the work at various cemeteries in the area, the club has completed a number of projects to support living veterans and active-duty personnel. These projects include planning and carrying out a birthday party for a 103 year-old WW2 veteran in Oct. 2024, collecting materials for and stuffing 21 giant Christmas stockings to send to patients in a military hospital in Texas in Dec. 2024 and working with an organization called Soldier’s Angels to send Valentine’s cards signed by elementary, middle and high school students to veterans in VA hospitals.

The club also created an educational video for elementary and middle school about the significance of Veteran’s Day, assists elderly veterans with tasks such as raking leaves or clearing snow from walks, raised over $1,000 for the Red Cross to support those displaced by the California wildfires and helps raise the flags throughout the community on holidays and important events like Cattlemen’s.

Current sponsor and industrial arts and woodworking teacher Phipps revealed one of the latest projects the club has been working on –– handcrafting veteran’s flag display boxes.

“One of the big things that we are implementing with the American Legion and the woodshop is building the wooden boxes that the flags are stored in when given to family members [of veterans] who have passed,” said Phipps. “We will be making those out of hardwood. If someone [in Gunnison] wants a flag box we will make one for them and we’re not charging for them.”

To get involved with the GHS Legion Club as a student, veteran or community member, contact Wyatt Phipps for more information at email wphipps@gunnisonschools.net.

(Gia Wright can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or gia@gunnisontimes.com.)