Carlisle Exchange Club presents flag to SOA

Pictured left to right are Walt Wood, Division 6 Director of the Mid-Atlantic District; Anne Wood, President of the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Exchange Club; and Clyde Barr, Director of the 2008 Sound of America Honor Band and Chorus.

For thirty-two years Clyde Barr has brought together some 200 talented high school students from throughout the nation to form the Sound of America Honor Band and Chorus to represent America in a highly positive manner.  They perform before large European audiences in many of the most famous cathedrals and most notable concert halls of Europe.  This year’s twenty-five-day tour includes eleven performances in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France and Luxembourg following five days of rehearsal and trip orientation at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA.  While in France, the group will visit the MEUSE-ARGONNE AMERICAN CEMETERY near Verdun as a part of the 90^th anniversary of the epic 47-day Meuse-Argonne offensive that ended the First World War.

In commemoration of the offensive that brought the war to an end, the Exchange Club of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, made a presentation to Clyde and the Band and Chorus before a large crowd at the Leffler Chapel at Elizabethtown College.  On presenting the flag to Clyde, Anne said, “On behalf of the Exchange Club of Carlisle, it gives my husband and me great pleasure to present this flag to be flown over the American cemetery at Verdun where over 14,000 Americans, who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War I, are buried.”

Exchange, America’s Service Club, is a group of men and women working together to make our communities better places to live through programs of service in Americanism, Community Service, Youth Activities, and its national project, the Prevention of Child Abuse.  Please visit our National web site at http:/www.nationalexchangeclub.org.