by Cory Woodroof | Mar 8, 2012 | News Slider
To honor those who both attend Lipscomb and have served our country in the past ten years, Charlie Daniels returned to Lipscomb Tuesday night to headline the third annual concert benefitting the campus’ Yellow Ribbon program. Founded in 2009, the Yellow Ribbon program helps post 9/11 GI Bill veterans to obtain an education for little-to-no charge on their behalf at Lipscomb University. The current program currently offers more than 150 veterans the chance to attend the university. Daniels expressed enthusiasm in getting another opportunity work with the program. “I can’t think of a bigger honor or a more necessary thing to do than to try to take care of people who have literally gone out and stood between us and the enemy,” Daniels said. “I think that a lot of our servicemen and women have changed their dreams in midstream. Maybe they had something planned to do when they came back from the service that injuries may have precluded them to do, and this program helps prepare them for the rest of their lives. So, I don’t think we can ever do enough for our service people.” The musician has a long history of holding servicemen and women in a very high regard.Daniels said that “you cannot beat the people in our military.” Daniels was very excited to play in front of a large crowd in Allen Arena Tuesday night and was not hesitant in saying so. “It’s like when I hit stage, a crowd is a crowd and a show is a show, and I’m there to give everything all I’ve got,” Daniels said. Daniels also offered...
by Jonathan Corley | Apr 20, 2011 | News Slider
A small group of seven Lipscomb military veterans will travel this summer to Ghana to provide aid and relief to citizens in the West African state. The team will be working with Mobile Medical Disaster Relief (MMDR) and the Touch a Life foundation to help a local Lake Volta orphanage — which houses children saved from child slavery — to provide inoculations. They also will be identifying local villagers in desperate need of life-saving surgery to repair hernias. The students will be working in the area to help prevent children from being sold into dangerous labor in the future. Susannah Leonard, Air Force veteran and Lipscomb senior in the Yellow Ribbbon program is excited to be going on the trip. “I am just happy to be taking a part in a mission that could potentially change the lives of so many children,” Leonard said. “In the military you are always working to change the world for the better, but I think this trip will make it a more personal and spiritual experience. “The conditions many of these children have been forced to work in are just terrible. Many of them never survive the life-threatening work on the lake, and while we are there we want to do what we can to prevent this tragedy.” It will be the first Lipscomb University mission for the Campus Veterans Organization (CVO) which is comprised of veterans who have a history of serving and sacrificing for those in need of help. Each veteran’s experience is unique, some having traveled to the inhospitable terrain of the Middle East, others to the urban areas of Asia...
by Kelsey Durnin | Apr 4, 2011 | News Slider
The second annual Operation Yellow Ribbon was a huge success! The event featured General Tommy Franks as keynote speaker and performances by Charlie Daniels, Wynonna Judd, The Grascals and Montgomery Gentry. Charlie Daniels was honored by being appointed a colonel. The whole event was hosted by GAC’s Storme Warren. Prior to the show, veteran students and other VIP guests had the opportunity to meet with Gen. Franks and Daniels as well as the performers: Montgomery Gentry, The Grascals and Wynonna Judd. The Grascals’ banjo player Kristin Benson and guitarist Terry Eldredge were excited for the opportunity to show support for troops and veterans. “This is a worthwhile event we’re proud to be a part of,” says Benson. The Grascals played two songs including their cover of The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville.” “It’s great, anyway you can honor them,” Eldredge said, a bit choked up. “They dodge bullets for us. Anybody who does that deserves to be honored.” Daniels has always been a notoriously patriotic supporter of the military and its veterans, and has performed at both Operation Yellow Ribbon events at Lipscomb. This year he played a new song asking everyone to pray for the troops. He also played the Charlie Daniels Band classic, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” with accompaniment from The Grascals. “There is a Santa Claus and his name isn’t St. Nick, its St. Charlie Daniels,” said Eldredge. To add to the night’s excitement, David Hughes announced Lipscomb’s new partnership with Sentinels of Freedom, a program which awards scholarships to qualifying veterans who were severely injured in the line of duty. The first student...
by Kelsey Durnin | Mar 28, 2011 | News Slider
The second annual Operation Yellow Ribbon event will be this Tuesday, Mar. 29 at 7 p.m. in Allen Arena. “We hope this inspiring evening of stories and songs will do three things,” said David Hughes, assistant dean of students and director of the Yellow Ribbon Program. “We want it to raise awareness about the Yellow Ribbon Program, honor the military and veterans and help raise funds to support Yellow Ribbon.” General Tommy Franks, who is also the author of New York Times bestseller American Soldier, will be the keynote speaker again this year. General Franks spoke at last year’s Operation Yellow Ribbon on the importance of family, faith and flag and will be delivering a message just as strong this time around. Hughes describes him as a dynamic speaker who can “have you in stitches one minute, then crying the next.” The event’s evening benefit concert has been arranged by the Charlie Daniels Band production team absolutely free of charge to show their support for the military. “Without the Charlie Daniels Band production team this event would not happen,” Hughes said. “They are that integral to this.” The benefit concert will feature acoustic performances by Charlie Daniels, Wynonna Judd, Montgomery Gentry and the Grascals. Hughes says, however, this will be much more than a concert as each performer will also be telling stories. Funds raised by the event will go to support the Yellow Ribbon Program, which has been established at Lipscomb since on Aug, 1, 2009. This program is part of a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs which allows veterans to pursue an education at public or private...
by Anne Paquin | Dec 27, 2010 | News Slider
Nick Livingston knows the lifestyle of a student is far removed from the way he spent the past eight years before coming to Lipscomb. “I was in places like Iraq when I was your age,” Livingston said.”We were hungry, we ran out of food, bullets; you didn’t know if you would have anything to eat or drink the next day.” Livingston, who is at Lipscomb as a part of the Yellow Ribbon program to attract veterans, spent much of his youth at war. The program brought Livingston, now a sophomore Bible major, to Lipscomb the first year it was in effect in 2009. Veterans are able to come to school with G.I. Bill funding, but it’s not enough to cover Lipscomb costs, so the university picks up the remainder of the tuition. This year the Yellow Ribbon program participants nearly doubled in numbers, bringing more than 60 veterans and their families onto our campus. At 18, Livingston graduated from Cibola High School in Albuquerque, N.M., enlisted and left for basic training on May 30, 2001, months before the events of Sept.11 changed the world. He made a choice to sacrifice his youth because he believed in something. “I wanted to create a better world for my nieces and for my family to live in,” Livingston said. He was trained as an intelligence analyst and counter-terrorism specialist. During his eight year stint, Livingston was deployed on multiple tours, which included being in Korea for a year, Iraq for three years total and Afghanistan for eight months. “I don’t really think there are parallels (between Lipscomb and the Army), because you are coming from...
