Please join your neighbors, loved ones and friends — your fellow Americans — at noon Thursday on Broadway to pay tribute to our troops.

We are taking a Miss-Lou community family photo to send to our troops around the world.

This is an important time of year for family — the holiest actually.

For most of us it is the one time we stop long enough to be with family. It is a blessing. A few of us will not be able to go to our family gathering this year. Some of our family members won’t be able to come to us.

A large part of our family — our American family, our military — will not be able to be at home for Christmas.

And make no mistake, they are family from where ever they hail in America, they too are part of the Miss-Lou family heart.

You probably know some of these family members who won’t be home this year. The others — well,we know there out there.

They’re our American cousins. We just haven’t been formally introduced.

We rejoice in the fact that so many of members of our military have just come home safe. Neither do we forget our fallen who paid the ultimate price.

It is necessary then that we not forget the others. Those still fighting, standing guard for the freedoms so costly won in the past.

We have an opportunity to show them this at noon Thursday. Let’s show them the Miss-Lou hasn’t forgotten.

We were not named the United States of America by accident. And that we are — united.

Please make the time to join us at noon Thursday on Broadway.

Come as you are. The only thing you actually need to bring is your American pride and spirit.

And let it show.

Karlyn Ritchie is a Natchez resident who considers herself blessed to be born an American.