Ryan Burchiel plays bagpipesPiper Ryan Burchiel plays during Remembrance Day observances Monday at the University of Windsor.

Hundreds gather to reflect and remember

On the first snowy day of the season, hundreds of UWindsor faculty, staff, and students gathered Nov. 11 in front of Memorial Hall to pay tribute to Canadian soldiers who fought and fell in the cause of freedom.

Monday’s Remembrance Day service featured letters from the Canadian Letter and Images Project, an archive of the country’s war experience, read aloud by acting students Abby Craig, Elizabeth Rodenburg, and Mason Sheaves, addresses by UWindsor president Robert Gordon and Canterbury College chaplain Cynthia Connell, and performances:

  • songs by the university choirs under the direction of Bruce Kotowich,
  • trumpet student Cody Abbruzzese playing of The Last Post and Reveille,
  • The Lament by bagpiper Ryan Burchiel, and
  • a recitation of the poem In Flanders Fields by drama professor Lionel Walsh.

It concluded with the laying of a wreath below the commemorative plaque in Memorial Hall.