ORLANDO, Fla. – UCF Celebrates the Arts is underway at the Doctor Phillips Center with a full line up of incredible performances.
One of those performances includes a combination of research and theatre by bringing to life the stories of Floridians who paid the ultimate price for our country and are buried in the St. Augustine National Cemetery.
Using the biographies of World War II veterans written and researched by UCF students and teachers from across the state, students with the Veteran Legacy Program at UCF along with Theatre UCF will bring those stories to life – through the lives of those impacted by their service and their sacrifice.
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“One of our monologues is told from the perspective of a sister who has come to visit her brother on her wedding day,” said UCF History Associate Professor and VPL leader, Dr. Amelia Lyons. “Another is the adoptive mother and sister of a veteran, and they live all the way down in Key West. He’s buried in Saint Augustine. And so they’re at home talking about the decision to bring him home, how happy they are that he’s close but still how far away he is.”
The Veterans Legacy Program is one of three major research programs at UCF that are student-centered within the history department and is a partnership with the VA’s National Cemetery Administration.
Bella love is a Junior History Major at UCF. She was called to Veterans Legacy Program because of the emotional connection that’s created when researching a veteran.
She wrote one of the monologues for Wednesday night’s performance of “Remembering Florida’s Lost Boys.”
“I wrote Lawrence Boden. and I wrote it from the perspective of his sister and her experience with losing an older brother,” Love said.
Love said she can identify with Boden’s sister as she has a younger brother who she said is her best friend.
“I think it was with every veteran we write, we kind of end up having that connection,” Love said. “It’s it’s definitely there. But this one, I have a little brother. And so that definitely hit home in that respect.”
Another featured veteran story is Max Denton Jr.
Denton served in the United States Army.
He first saw combat on D-Day, June 6th 1944 and became a national hero when newspapers printed a photograph of him touching a French baby with her family.
According to his biography from the Veterans Legacy Program, Denton’s family received letters from all over the world after his picture was published in newspapers across the country. Two of those letters came from General Dwight. D. Eisenhower and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Denton was killed in action in Luxembourg on January 1, 1945.
“It’s really special to have that kind of connection because if you suffered that significant of a loss, then obviously there is no repairing that but it helped to know that so many people contributed positively and had positive effects from him,” Love said.
Barbara Gannon is the Coordinator of the UCF Veteran’s History Project, but she’s also a veteran herself, having served in the United States Army for four years.
She said all veterans want to make sure those who made the ultimate sacrifice are remembered.
“They want their service to be honored because they feel a great burden of survival and memory,” Gannon said. “They want to make sure no one forgets this person. So it’s both living veterans who demand that those who did not come home are remembered.”
Wednesday’s performance of “Remembering Florida’s Lost Boys” will take place at 7:00 p.m. in the DeVos Family Room at The Dr. Phillips Center.
For more information on how to purchase tickets, click here.
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