NATCHEZ &045;&045; Some veterans spent last week in school classrooms receiving thanks for their service, but after Veteran’s Day the heroes still leave their mark in local schools.

Every classroom in the Natchez-Adams School District now has a small American flag hanging somewhere on the wall, courtesy of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9573.

The project was something the VFW decided the wanted to do almost six years ago, Johnny Rodriguez said.

&uot;They took the flags out of the classrooms and we decided we wanted to put them back in there,&uot; Rodriguez said.

The VFW got permission from the district and started working their way through the schools.

The first year they placed the flags in all first- and 12th-grade classrooms. Each year after they did two more grades, working toward the middle until the project was recently completed.

The money for the flags and wall brackets came from the VFW members who worked in conjunction with the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Rodriguez estimated that they probably spend around $1,000 a year until last year.

&uot;We are trying to get the kids familiar with things and veterans,&uot; he said.

In the future the VFW plans to begin a veterans in the classroom program to give the students a chance to learn more living history from the wars, Rodriguez said.

The next step in the flag project though is to move across the river and start purchasing flags for all the public school classrooms in Concordia Parish. Rodriguez said the Louisiana schools were also important because of the number of VFW members from that area.

Once all the Miss-Lou public schools have the flags the VFW will begin doing the same thing in the private school classrooms.

The flags in the Natchez-Adams District were installed by the schools maintenance workers.