(L to R) NAS CO Capt. Heidi Fleming, XO Capt. Scott Starkey and Navy school liaison Dawn Simpson during a ceremony honoring military children.

Leonardtown, MD — St. Mary’s County Public Schools (SMCPS) are expected to be a sea of purple on Friday, April 15. Everyone in the schools is being encouraged to wear purple in honor of the more than 5,000 military-connected children attending the school system. Why purple? It’s a color that created by mixing red, white and blue.

One of those military children is Sophie Drake, a third-grader at Captain Walter Francis Duke Elementary School in Leonardtown. She was featured in a video shown April 13 to the St. Mary’s County Board of Education as they proclaimed April as the Month of the Military Child in the school system

Making one of her final public appearances as commanding officer of Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Captain Heidi Fleming was on hand to accept the proclamation from the board. Joining her was Executive Officer Captain Scott Starkey in one of his last public appearances in that position before assuming command of the base in a ceremony on April 14.

The commanding officer praised the community that she has been a big part of for the last 18 months. “The cooperation we get from the community and the teachers is absolutely phenomenal,” she said.

Fleming said she was raised a military brat. “It would have been great to have this kind of support when I was growing up,” she declared.

She said she was absolutely amazed when assuming the command to find out the number of county residents who have been accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy, her alma mater.

Also attending the ceremony was Dawn Simpson. She is the Navy’s liaison with the school system and is responsible for creating a lot of the cooperation that was cited during the ceremony.

The Month of the Military Child is a legacy of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. According to information supplied for the event, “It was established to underscore the important role children play in the Armed Forces community.”

Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@tbhebaynet.com