Penn College News

Thank your plucky stars

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Placencia hangs this year's addition to the tree.Silhouetted against a red, white and blue sky, Beaver and Peluzzo add another strand to the holiday spruce.Stars pay tribute to more than 300 veterans and active-duty servicemen and women at Penn College.Peluzzo, Jones and Beaver (from left) form a time-saving triangle.The veterans tree shines at dawn's early light.Bundled against a brisk and unforgiving wind, members of Penn College’s military family finished decorating the Veterans Holiday Tree outside Madigan Library. The evergreen was lighted earlier in the season and, Wednesday afternoon, was additionally adorned with stars and other ornaments. Making quick work of the year-end tradition were three Veterans Affairs work-study employees – Cutter M. Hall, a construction management major from Erie; Emily J. Jones, an accounting student from Avis; and Gina M. Peluzzo, a Philadelphian enrolled in civil engineering technology – as well as Chet Beaver, coordinator of veterans and military affairs, and veteran Andrew Placencia, an automotive technology management student from Reading. Alongside aptly patriotic lights, the tree contains 322 stars (courtesy of the School of Industrial, Computing & Engineering Technologies' machining lab) representing the institution’s identified service personnel. It also holds five dated glass balls containing ribbons purchased during the annual Giving Tree fundraiser for the Fisher House Foundation, which tends to veterans' families while their loved ones undergo medical treatment.