Lighting a spark: Spa student revives veterans assembly

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS — Before he spent 17 years in the infantry as an airborne Ranger, before he spent another 12 years as a military strategist, before he fought in two wars — first as a combat soldier, then as a combat officer — before his 35-year Army career took him across the world and back again, retired Col. Doug Merritt built the foundation he needed in Crawford County.

The Venango native, who graduated from Cambridge Springs Junior-Senior High in 1988, visited his alma mater Friday for the return of the veterans breakfast and assembly that had been on hiatus since being canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Though he retired earlier this year, when Merritt reached behind the lectern Friday, it wasn't a military uniform that Merritt held up to show the students at assembly. Instead, it was the blue football jersey — No. 62 — that he wore as a senior captain when an underperforming Cambridge Springs team defeated heavily favored Saegertown by a field goal.

More important than his old jersey, he also came armed with a message aimed squarely at those students sitting where he had been nearly 40 years ago.

"I have used things that I learned in this school, talking to senators, talking to general officers, talking to foreign representatives, kings, queens — a lot of generals around the world," he told them, "using things in history, sociology and the understanding of people that I learned right here in Cambridge Springs. The stuff you're learning right now, I've used on a very large stage and you can, too — but you've got to learn it."

Virtually any opportunity they might desire is available to them, Merritt told the students, if they are determined enough to succeed.

"At the end of the day, it absolutely comes down to, do you want it — and are you willing to work for it?" he said.

The event that drew Merritt and dozens of other veterans and their family members to the school offered evidence that the can-do philosophy had some merit to it — and that it is already in use at Cambridge Springs.

Tysin Findlay, a senior at the school, comes from a family with extensive military connections, including his father Mark, who was a machinist in the Navy. When he was little, his mother, Rhonda, would bring him to the borough's parade, which typically drew residents to line the streets and gather on front porches on the Thursday before Veterans Day each year.

He was raised to thank veterans for their service, Tysin said, and when he attended the veterans assemblies as a junior high student, the event resonated with him.

"We used to have a massive veterans assembly and a parade," he said. "Honoring our veterans is really dear to me and missing that assembly is missing a main part of what our community does to celebrate our veterans. I decided to bring it back, especially for my senior year, so that way I could light the spark in order for other people to pick it up and continue it."

One of those people might be Konner Astor, the sophomore who helped Findlay and joined him as the emcees for the event. Given the five-year break, Astor was pleased with the outcome.

"I thought more mistakes were going to happen," he said after the smoothly run event. "It was great."

When Findlay approached Principal Kylene Koper about bringing the event back late last month, Koper's response came quickly: "Go," she told him. She was equally clear in thanking Findlay and Astor at the end of the assembly, telling the audience, "It was 100 percent put on by these two."

In addition to Merritt's address, the event featured video messages from recent Spa graduates Hunter Robinson, a signal support specialist with the National Guard at Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, and Finley Rauscher, a cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.

Providing a bit of balance to Merritt's idealistic look back at a decades-long career that ended earlier this year, Robinson, a 2024 graduate, offered the impressions of someone still finding his way in the military — and someone who could find humor among the challenges.

"One thing I thought I would never be doing in my life is waking up at 3:30 in the morning to just stand outside," he said. "We do a lot of standing around in the Army — that's what they'll never tell you. We stand around and just kind of always wonder what we're doing sometimes. We're very confused a lot."

But Merritt suggested that for those who take a balanced and thoughtful approach, such confusion eventually begins to resolve itself.

"There's nothing you guys can't do, all you have to do is want it and believe in it," he said. "I know it sounds too simple, but it really is that simple."

Merritt stressed opportunities, but also acknowledged that they come with "a little weight on your shoulders."

"When all of you succeed, our country succeeds," Merritt said. "We can't continue to lead the world and ensure freedom and ensure your children are going to have peace and all of those things, if you don't succeed."