Albers prepares for Blast-Off parade and fireworks

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The 2017 Albers Blast-Off Parade & Fireworks! Grand Marshals are Elaine and Dennis Behrmann, Sis and Dennis Rickhoff, Dan and Rita Poettker, and Stan Huegen with Commercial Club officers Deb Schomaker, treasurer; Sherri Haukap, vice president; Al Loepker, president; and Brenda Kassen, secretary (not in photo).    The 2017 Albers Blast-Off Parade and Fireworks!, hosted by the Albers Commercial Club, will be held Monday, July 3.
    This year's parade Grand Marshals are Dennis and Elaine Behrmann, Stan Huegen, Dan and Rita Poettker and Dennis and Sis Rickhoff.  
    The Grand Marshals will lead the parade and are being honored as longtime community volunteers, having been active in civic organizations and village leadership for many years.
    Everyone is invited to celebrate the Albers Blast-Off Parade and Fireworks! The parade starts at 6:30 p.m., lining up at American Legion Post #1026, with a brilliant fireworks display at 9 p.m. Food and refreshments will be served at the new American Legion pavilion beginning at 4 p.m.  
    Contact Brenda at Albers Village Hall (618-248-5154 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Steve (618-973-8860) to enter the parade. Bring your family and friends to this family-friendly event.  
    See you in Albers on Monday, July 3, for the 2017 Albers Blast-Off Parade and Fireworks. 

Foppe graduates from Naval Academy

Denise and Bill Foppe of Breese have the privilege of placing their son Luke’s new ensign shoulder boards following his U.S. Naval Academy graduation and commissioning ceremony on May 26 at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.    Luke Foppe of Breese was among the U.S. Naval Academy’s 1,053 new Navy and Marine Corps officers to take part in the annual graduation and commissioning ceremony held May 26 at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.
    Foppe, 22, was a meritorious graduate with a degree in computer engineering. He will begin his first assignment in September at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base on the south shore of the island of Oahu in Hawaii where he will serve as a cryptologic warfare officer specializing in cyber security and signals intelligence. 
    Luke is the son of Bill and Denise Foppe of Breese and a 2013 graduate of Mater Dei High School.
    He said his interest in military operations began at a young age with many family vacations to historic battlefields. During his four years of high school, he took the appropriate college prep courses, improved his physical strength, and practiced leadership skills by participating in many extracurricular clubs and community activities.
    Foppe was nominated for the Naval Academy in January 2013 by U.S. Congressman John Shimkus, representative of the 15th District of Illinois.
    During his four years at Annapolis, Foppe was part of the Academy’s Cyber Security team which won the Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX), hosted by the National Security Agency, in 2015 and 2017. 
    Those prestigious victories led to special recognition ceremonies at the White House where the students were honored by President Barack Obama in 2015 and Vice President Mike Pence in 2017. 
    Foppe explained that CDX is a cyber security exercise in which students from the service academies design and build computer networks and defend them against intrusions by the National Security Agency/Central Security Services (NSA/CSS) Red Team (Red Cell).
    During the exercise, representatives from each of these schools designed, built and defended their virtual computer networks against malicious attacks by NSA “Red Cell.” Teams chose how to use the resources at their disposal to best defend their networks and to keep certain critical services running, while the attackers attempted to infiltrate the networks and disrupt those services.
    Foppe also participated on the Academy’s Varsity Offshore Sailing Team which provided  training in ocean sailing, seamanship, navigation, leadership and teamwork. The team had the opportunity to compete in races near the Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard along with Long Island, New York.
    Twenty-five of Foppe’s family and friends attended the graduation and commissioning ceremony in Annapolis in May where Vice President Pence served as guest speaker.
    The 2017 graduating class included 768 Navy ensigns and 259 Marine Corps second lieutenants. 
    Founded in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy today is a prestigious four-year service academy that prepares midshipmen morally, mentally and physically to be professional officers in the naval service.  More than 4,400 men and women representing every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries make up the student body, known as the Brigade of Midshipmen. 
    U.S. News and World Report  has recognized the U.S. Naval Academy as a top five undergraduate engineering school and a top 20 best liberal arts college.  Midshipmen learn from military and civilian instructors and participate in intercollegiate varsity sports and extracurricular activities. They also study subjects such as leadership, ethics, small arms, drill, seamanship and navigation, tactics, naval engineering and weapons, cyber security, and military law.  
    Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a Bachelor of Science degree in a choice of 25 subject majors and go on to serve at least five years of exciting and rewarding service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps.
    For more information about the U.S. Naval Academy, visit: www.usna.edu or its Facebook page.