CFK to honor fallen heroes, veterans in Key West ceremony

Monroe County families with military ties will have a public place to gather at The College of the Florida Keys next month, when CFK opens its Key West campus for a free Memorial Day observance built around veterans, fallen service members and active-duty personnel.

The ceremony, titled A 250-Year Salute to American Heroes, is set for Thursday, May 21 at 1 p.m. and is being held during National Military Appreciation Month and ahead of Memorial Day. CFK says the event is open to the community and is meant to honor fallen heroes, veterans, service members and their families in a county where military life remains part of the civic fabric.

The program will begin with an invocation by Ed Coy, who CFK identifies as an Army veteran, former chaplain and Marine Engineering instructor at the college. President Dr. Jonathan Gueverra will deliver his annual Memorial Day Salute, a CFK tradition that recognizes a late veteran and member of the CFK family. CFK says it marks veterans and military service men and women each Memorial Day and Veterans Day through Gueverra’s salute.

CFK Academy high school students will perform the national anthem, and college leaders will raise an American flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in honor of CFK’s 60th anniversary. The college’s framing ties the ceremony to both remembrance and institutional pride, while keeping the focus on service, sacrifice and the local families who live with those legacies year-round.

The setting carries added weight in Monroe County. The county’s Veterans Affairs office says it serves about 8,000 full-time and 2,500 seasonal veterans, military personnel, survivors, dependents and family members across the Florida Keys, with offices in Key Largo and Key West. Staff handle more than 18,500 client interactions a year, a sign of how many residents rely on veterans services in the island chain.

Key West’s military history runs deep, too. Navy history places John W. Simonton among those who pushed for a naval base there after buying Key West in 1821, and Matthew C. Perry planted the U.S. flag on March 25, 1822. A naval base followed a year later at what is now Mallory Square. The Navy says Key West was a strategic anti-piracy and Civil War site, the lone southern port that did not fall under Confederate control, and later played a role in the Spanish-American War. Naval Air Station Key West still serves as a strategic training location and supports tenant commands, keeping the military connection visible in daily life across the Keys.