OSSEO, Wisconsin (WEAU) – Between sessions at Colfax Elementary School, two boys had an unforgettable experience.
“A few weeks ago, he was sitting there crying, and he walked over and begged for a hug, and I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ “He just said, ‘I miss my dad,'” Melissa Prince, a junior kindergarten teacher at Colfax Elementary, recalled.
The family has waited for this moment.
“They’re just sweet little guys, and it seems like this could be a really special moment for him,” said Trevor Hovde, administrator of Colfax Elementary School.
“The kids think that he’s picking them up after school,” Prince told me. “But we have other plans for them.”
Technical Sergeant Nicholas Vanasse of the United States Air Force has returned home.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Vanasse explained.
“Transitions are really hard for little people and this is an opportunity for this reunification that I think will just be really powerful,” Hovde told the crowd.
Nick spent the past year serving in South Korea.
“It’s very lonely in an apartment by myself overseas,” Nick told me.
But now he is back with his family, doing whatever they want together.
“Just seeing their family back together again, I think it’s going to mean a lot to them,” Prince told the crowd.
“I just think a core memory was made today,” Nick’s wife, Sara Vanasse, explained.
A central memory of a family reuniting. Nick and Sara expressed gratitude to the community for their support over the previous year, saying it’s been an incredible opportunity for their children to experience life in a small town. The family will shortly relocate to Germany, where Nick will be stationed next.