Events and Activities : Annual VSMS Pearl Harbor ceremony to include story of Iowa chaplain who died so others could live

The annual Pearl Harbor Day Memorial ceremony at the Vinton-Shellsburg Middle School LMC will happen from 12:00-1pm on Wednesday, 7 December 2016. 8th grade students will perform the National Anthem, Taps, and read from the after-action reports of Army and Navy commanders. This year's emphasis will be on the story of Father Aloysius Schmitt, the chaplain of the USS Oklahoma, whose actions that day saved several shipmates at the cost of his life. Father Schmitt's remains were recently identified and he was reburied in the chapel of Loras College in Dubuque. He was the first chaplain to die during WWII. 8th grade teacher Alex Vasquez, the grandson of a World War II sailor, has led the ceremony each of the past several years. This year is the 75th anniversary of the attack that forced the U.S. into World War II.