Poppies, Flyover Mark WWI Centenary at NC State University 

By Tim Peeler
North Carolina State University

RALEIGH, NC -- North Carolina’s main U.S. World War I Centennial Commission observance – and the only one of 100 worldwide events held on a college campus – took place last week, at the Memorial Tower, NC State’s iconic tribute to its students and alumni who served and died in the war.

U.S. WWI Centennial Commissioner Jerry Hester speaks at a ceremony honoring WWI veterans. May 1, 2018 in Raleigh. (Photo by Shawn Krest, North State Journal)NC State Alumni Association executive director Benny Suggs and Centennial Commissioner Jerry Hester, both military veterans and NC State graduates, were among the speakers at the event, held on the steps of the Belltower.

Read more about bringing this event to NC State.

Also featured were speeches by the University's Army ROTC Battalion Commander Nathan Durrant, retired Associate Chancellor for Student Affairs Tom Stafford, and Chancellor Randy Woodson.

The plaza of the Belltower was decorated by thousands of real and artificial red poppies, the internationally recognized symbol of remembrance, a tradition that sprouted from the John McCrae poem “In Flanders Field.”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

The natural flowers were grown by NC State professor Bill Fonteno’s horticulture science class over the course of the spring semester.

The 40-minute ceremony included a singing of the national anthem, an invocation, a 21-gun salute -- and a flyover of F-15 fighters from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.

Thirty-four NC State students and alumni died in the conflict. Their names, along with another that represents all who served, are engraved in the ground-level chapel of the Belltower. A full list of their names can be found here.

Read more stories about NC State’s participation in the war.

The ceremony concluded with the laying of a wreath at the base of the tower and the playing of “Taps” in their memory.

For more about the state of North Carolina’s role in the war -- and to see a replica of a World War I battlefield trench -- visit the North Carolina Museum of History’s exhibit “North Carolina & World War I.”

Poppies, the traditional symbol of remembrance, cover the lawn in front of the N.C. State Memorial Bell Tower for a ceremony honoring WWI veterans. May 1, 2018 in Raleigh. (Photo by Shawn Krest, North State Journal)