By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor
A Keavy soldier who made headlines in 2008 when he surprised his daughter while on leave from Iraq is trying to win plane tickets home for Christmas.
Jonathan Collett is one of five finalists in a contest hosted by Seattle, Washington radio station Spirit 105.3 FM. The winner, to be determined tonight by the number of online votes, will win $1,000 and four round-trip airfare tickets to fly home for the holidays.
“I was driving down the road and they announced it, and I thought I would enter,” Jonathan said. “Evidently they do this every week for seven weeks.”
To become a finalist in the contest, Jonathan had to share a story about his favorite holiday memory. He told about a surprise visit to his daughter Hannah’s kindergarten class in 2008. He had come back from Iraq on leave in February to celebrate a late Christmas home.
“The class had spent the whole morning talking about our country, our soldiers, and the war,” Jonathan wrote in his contest entry. “The local news crew was there, and all of the children were telling about what they knew about the war. When the teacher noticed me outside of the door, she announced that she had a special surprise and brought me in. The look on my daughter’s face was priceless. Her jaw dropped to the floor, and I could tell that she didn’t know what to do.
“She broke out in tears and ran and jumped up into my arms. We both just stood there sobbing in front of the cameras. It was a moment that I’ll cherish a lifetime.”
Read the story or listen to him telling it online at http://spirit1053.com/familyfun.php?articleID=481.
Once he came back home, Jonathan learned he would be stationed in Fort Lewis in Washington state. So, Jonathan, his wife Angela, along with her two children, Matthew and Jessica, moved to Washington earlier this year. Jonathan’s daughter Hannah lives in Hazard with her mother and his parents live in Keavy.
Jonathan said there would be “no way” he could afford to fly his family home to Kentucky without the contest.
Votes will be taken for the contest through midnight PST Friday (3 a.m. Saturday local time). You can vote at spirit1053.com, by clicking on “Holiday Stories 09.”
