SALISBURY — Blessed with a beautiful, sunny Memorial Day, residents of several Greater Newburyport communities came together for one singular reason: to honor those who paid the ultimate price for this country’s freedom.
Among the communities that went all out to celebrate the day was Salisbury, beginning with its annual parade at 10 a.m.
“We had participants meet and line up at the fire station parking lot, and we had all sorts of members of the community participate this year,” organizer Jenn Roketenetz said.
Participants included the Board of Selectmen, state Rep. Dawne Shand, the police and fire departments, Senior Center officials, Salisbury Baseball, Salisbury Flag Football, the Lions Club and Massachusetts Miss Military Haylee Clogston.
“It was a great showing of community coming together, as Salisbury loves to do, for an important day,” Roketenetz said.
Fred Knowles, a former selectman, was once again master of ceremonies when the parade made its way to the Town Common.
Students from the elementary school came up to read essays at the service.
“On one end, a fourth-grade child gets up and reads what they think the importance of freedom and the importance of these services are. And just before them, to have somebody like Boots Chouinard talk about his experience at 101 years old,” Roketenetz said, referring to U.S. Army veteran Robert “Boots” Chouinard.
Roketenetz said she had a few people come up to her tell her how much they appreciated the event.
“They said that it was really nice that we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country through ceremonies like these, but equally important that we are continuing to do these things,” Roketenetz said.
In Amesbury, festivities kicked off at 7:30 a.m. at Alliance Park, with veterans gathering to toss a wreath into the Merrimack River to honor fallen Marines and sailors.
From there, wreaths were placed at the veteran’s plot in Union Cemetery, then the Doughboy statue and Justin Memorial at Amesbury Middle School, and finally the Polish Memorial on Market Street.
The main ceremony began at 10 a.m. in Landry Stadium and went just over half an hour, with the full service available to watch on the Amesbury Community Television Facebook page.
Among those to speak was Amesbury Mayor Kassandra Gove.
“This is an opportunity to gather in memory of our service members who have given the ultimate sacrifice, their lives for our freedom, and to be in community with those who have learned to live on without them: their family, friends and fellow service members,” Gove said.
Starting an hour later, Newburyport held a ceremony outside City Hall.
The program included an invocation by Major Jon-Eric Bourkhardt of The Salvation Army, a reading of the names of recently departed veterans by Mayor Sean Reardon, remarks by Veteran Services Director Kevin Hunt, and musical offerings by the Newburyport High School Marching Band.
“This year was meaningful because I knew so many of them personally. In the end, I was so appreciative that people took time out of their day to honor the brave men and women who died fighting for our great country,” Reardon said.
Reardon went on to say he was pleased so many people took time from the holiday to honor those who died protecting the United States.
“Veterans Director Kevin Hunt did an amazing job as master of ceremonies. The NHS marching band was amazing,” Reardon said.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.