PLANO, Texas — Sheridan Skurupey-McDonald's memories of her father are not as vivid as she would like them to be.
She was only 5 years old when he died in a military transport plane crash. But as she walked up to a podium in Plano on Tuesday to tell her dad's story one more time, she knew she was in the company of hundreds committed to helping her, and a grateful nation, remember.
Skurupey-McDonald was a guest speaker for the Ninth annual Rolling Remembrance relay at Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano. An American flag flown in a combat zone in Kandahar in 2020 is midway on its 2024 journey from Seattle to New York.
Frito-Lay driver Otis Howell, an Army veteran, took possession of the flag and buckled it in its protective case in the passenger seat of his semi. The next leg of a total of 68 exchanges takes it, and Howell's cargo of PepsiCo products, to Hattiesburg, Mississippi where it will be handed off to another driver for the next part of its journey.
"I have to protect the flag, at all costs," said Howell next to the semi trailer with "Rolling Remembrance" painted on the side. "That's what I feel about it."
The effort by Frito-Lay and its 66,000 employees is part of the company's effort to raise money for the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation which provides college tuition for children in Gold Star families. Sheridan Skurupey-McDonald, who now works as a fundraiser for the foundation, is also one of its very first scholarship recipients.
"I have my own flag at home. I have what they presented to me when I was five," she said of her father's death. "And I think it's also that symbolic remembrance of what we see when we walk into our homes."
Her father, Staff Sgt. Gregory Skurupey, was among 18 Virginia National Guardsmen and three Florida Army Guard soldiers who died in the crash of a C-23 transport plane in Unadilla, Georgia in 2001. It is considered the worst peacetime aviation disaster in the history of the National Guard.
This year she says the Fallen Patriots Foundation is supporting more than 1,200 college students.
The effort by PepsiCo and Frito-Lay also highlights the work of its VALOR program that helps serve as a resource for company employees who served in the military.
"What I wants folks to see is hey, it's about remembering. Remembering veterans and everybody that served in the military," said Leon Plummer who, before joining Frito-Lay, served more than 20 years in the Army and credits the VALOR program with helping ease him back into a civilian workforce.
Midday Tuesday, a crowd of employees watched as Otis Howell drove away from Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano on the flag's next 500-mile journey to Mississippi.
"I think it's just a reminder that there is loss in your backyard," Skurupey-McDonald said as she watched the truck pull away. "That there is loss in your state. "
And a reminder that veterans in a civilian workforce are raising every dollar they can to honor the families their fellow soldiers left behind.
An estimated 25,000 children have lost a parent in military service over the last 35 years. Through scholarships and educational counseling, Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation helps to bridge the average $25,000 gap between government assistance programs and the cost of a four-year degree that scholars face.