November 13, 2019 548 PM
PRESIDIO — Presidio schools on Monday held a Veteran’s Day event at the school gym.
Alexis Contreras and Isabel Suiba, two school band members, played taps — a bugle call traditionally played at military funerals.
Students read poems, organizers gave a PowerPoint presentation on local veterans, and guest speaker Ronald Galliete, a Border Patrol agent and veteran, gave remarks.
The main event lasted from around 10 to 11 a.m., said special events coordinator and attendance clerk Ruby Tavarez. Afterwards, Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez fed veterans at a luncheon.
“I was very pleased,” Tavarez said of the event. “We had a lot of veterans show up this year — more this year than the years before. We had a great turnout.”
Still, she added: “I missed some of the veterans that couldn’t make it.”
Tavarez thanked everyone who showed up — including Sheriff Dominguez and the Presidio County Sheriff’s Office for serving food, which she described as “really, really sweet of them to do.”
In an email to The Big Bend Sentinel, Derek Boyle, Patrol Agent in Charge at Presidio Border Patrol, said the agency was “honored to participate” and that organizers Ruby Tavarez and Presidio Chief Deputy Joel Nuñez “did an amazing job.”
“About half my Station is comprised of veterans,” he wrote. “We have a goal still to help the American Legion building get back up and running.”
He added: “We are honored to be around vets like longtime resident Luis Armendariz, who served in Vietnam, and USBP Watch Commander Butch Galliete who was a Bronze Star with Valor recipient from the battle in Mogadishu” — the battle that inspired the movie “Black Hawk Down.”
