Submitted Photo Local senior citizens and retired military members are shown at the Thanksgiving Day of Love at Minot Air Force Base in 2018. The group participated in the Thanksgiving feast with various events, such as bingo, door prizes and the crowning of the oldest male and female participant. Photo from Minot AFB.

As many as 200 local senior citizens will have the opportunity to enjoy Thanksgiving Day at Minot Air Force Base this year.

For the 49th annual year, the men and women of the Minot base will be hosting a Thanksgiving event for senior citizens known as “Day of Love.” There they can enjoy a free Thanksgiving dinner and entertainment at the Jimmy Doolittle Center.

Local senior citizens still have time to sign up for the Thursday, Nov. 28, event. As of Wednesday morning, about 100 senior citizens had signed up for the event, according to Minot Commission on Aging information. The event is limited to 200 senior citizens.

Those who would like to sign up to attend should call the Minot Commission on Aging at 852-0561 by Nov. 22.

Buses will pick up senior citizens at the Parker Senior Center in Minot at 10:15 a.m. and return around 1:30 p.m.

Designated the “Day of Love,” the base’s annual Thanksgiving Day program got its start in 1970 when Col. Grover C. Graves Jr., commander of the then 91st Strategic Missile Wing (now 91st Missile Wing), called Claude “Bud” Ebert, then chief of Recreation Services at the base, to start a program for Minot’s senior citizens, according to the Minot Daily News files. Graves had arrived at the Minot base in August 1970. Graves also wanted the program to involve base personnel who were away from their families during the holiday.

From the first year it was held, the Minot AFB-hosted Thanksgiving Day event for local senior citizens has become a tradition.