Veterans and current military personnel can ride for free all day Thursday on Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky buses.

BOONE COUNTY

BURLINGTON - Last year's second-grade class from Immaculate Heart of Mary School will begin a Veterans Day assembly at 12:40 p.m. Wednesday in the gymnasium by honoring Tia Meyer, a soldier the students adopted who has now returned from Iraq.

The assembly, for children in grades 2-4, also will include a reading of a letter from President Bush; a song honoring military spouses by Jerry Tolbert; a flag ceremony by the Boone County Sheriff Color Guard; and a speech by H.B. Deatherage, a Vietnam veteran and organizer of the Boone County Veterans Memorial.

FLORENCE - Elizabeth Wilson, a cadet captain in Kentucky's Civil Air Patrol Air Force Auxiliary, will recognize veterans with a speech at 6 p.m. Thursdayat the annual Veterans Day program at the Boone County Veterans Memorial on the Florence Government Center's campus, 8100 Ewing Blvd.

The event includes music from the Florence Community Band, the Boone and Florence honor guards, and winners of the Boone County Jaycees essay contest and Florence Rotary Scholarship. H.B. Deatherage, organizer of the Boone County Veterans Memorial, will emcee the program.

CAMPBELL COUNTY

COLD SPRING - A Disabled American Veterans ceremony begins at 10 a.m. Thursday at the group's national headquarters, 3725 Alexandria Pike.

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - Northern Kentucky University biological sciences professor Becky Evans will talk about her time spent in Iraq and Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom at a faculty luncheon seminar beginning at 12:05 p.m. Wednesday in Room 304 of the W. Frank Steely Library.

Evans spent Christmas in Tikrit, and traveled with soldiers, enduring the desert heat and sandstorms with them. Register by e-mail crusem@nku.edu or call (859) 572-5803.

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - Rep. Ken Lucas, a Boone County Democrat, will attend Northern Kentucky University's ceremony outside the W. Frank Steely Library from 11 a.m. to noon Thursday

NEWPORT - A Veterans Day ceremony begins at 11 am. Thursday at the city's municipal building, 998 Monmouth St.

If your community, school or group is planning a Veterans Day event that is open to the public, please fax details to Janinne Thompson at (513) 755-4150, or e-mail to jthompson@enquirer.com.