Saturday, on the surface, was one of those typical autumn days here.

The sun warmed the faces and backs of people attending the Livingstone College and Catawba College football games.

Livingstone students and alumni had their homecoming parade during the morning in Salisbury. The downtown already had American flags on the street poles, in anticipation of Veterans Day.

People at home raked leaves into giant piles or mowed their lawns one last time before winter. Kids scrambled around local soccer fields.

In Lexington, politicians shook hands at the annual barbecue festival. The Cleveland Lions Club sold Brunswick stew. The Mill Bridge Ruritans sponsored a car show at Sloan Park. Folks in Denton celebrated Horse and Mule Days.

But this wasn’t a typical day in October for the family of Lakeina “Kia” Francis, for how often does a family have to bury a 19-year-old heroine?

On Oct. 12, Kia and 16 other sailors on the USSCole lost their lives in a terrorist bombing during a refueling stop in the Middle East port of Yemen. She had joined the Navy in April only to come home much too soon.

On Saturday, the family sought some closure with her funeral, a military burial and a community reception at the Salisbury Civic Center.

The mood at the Civic Center was subdued, as friends, family members, military personnel, veterans, law enforcement, clergy, local dignitaries and just people from the community at large attended to show support for the Francis family.

It wasn’t a typical Saturday for them, either.

“It was an honor to come up,” said Kevin Patterson, attending the day’s events as an active-duty member of the U.S. Naval Reserve in Charlotte.

Normally, Patterson would be watching his 9-year-old son play flag football on Saturdays. But he didn’t think twice about traveling to Rowan County to take part in the Francis funeral.

The same could be said for his buddy, Michael Williams, a 16-year member of the Navy.

Williams had planned to attend the football homecoming game at N.C. A&T Saturday. This took priority, he said. No question.

Iler Davis skipped her usual routine to help prepare and serve food at the reception. She normally would have watched the Livingstone homecoming parade, then attended the game.

“But this was more important to us,” said Davis, a member of Hall’s Chapel Primitive Baptist Church.

Rebecca Kelly of First Calvary Baptist Church said word spread through the grapevine that volunteers were needed for the reception. Churches, she said, are the best place to look for help.

Members of New Zion Baptist Church in Granite Quarry and the Veterans Employees Association of the VA Medical Center also pitched in, as did others. Mayor Susan Kluttz said it was a sad day for Salisbury, but a way also to celebrate the life of a hero.

At least 46 local restaurants donated food for the Civic Center gathering.

The spread would have made any church homecoming proud. It included chicken, submarine sandwiches, cole slaw, barbecue, pot pie, green beans, potato salad, brownies, pudding and pies.

Representatives from all military branches attended Saturday’s events: the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Army and Air Force. Local law enforcement also showed up in force, including troopers from the N.C. Highway Patrol and VAMedical Center police.

Veterans organizations (Amvets, VFW and American Legion) provided manpower for the Civic Center reception. Much of the planning and coordination for everything came from Barbara Harrison and Frieda Nikolai.

“We had more volunteers than we needed,” Nikolai said, appreciative of the help from the veterans and East Spencer Police Department, whose officers picked up and delivered most of the donated food.

Nikolai had the Salisbury Police Department and members of the Salisbury-Rowan Human Relations Council in reserve as volunteer help if she needed them.

Bobby Lee, a 32-year-member of the U.S. Army Reserve and a VAemployee, helped at the reception with the hospital’s Veterans Serving Veterans Committee, and they also set up the tables Friday night.

“We feel like it was the least we could do for one of our fallen comrades,” said Lee, who often spends his typical Saturdays at Fort Bragg as a commander sergeant major for his military intelligence battalion.

Lee said the coming months will be hard for the Francis family, especially with the holidays approaching.

“They’re going to need our support,” he said. “... Time has a way of healing, but you never get over it.”

Lee noted how the whole community — virtually every walk of life — came together to show their support for the Francises. What a shame, he said, that it takes a tragedy to do it.

But regardless of race, church, politics or anything else, Lee said, “the one thing we have in common is that this is our country.”

The U.S. House was in session Saturday, trying to wrap things up before the election. Though he was missing votes to attend the funeral, U.S. Rep. Mel Watt said he couldn’t help but think that the Congress was conducting “business as usual.”

On Nov. 7, Watt said, elections will be held “as usual.” At the Salisbury National Cemetery on the VA hospital grounds Saturday, Watt said he heard the sounds of Catawba College’s football game being played “as usual.”

It’s only the dedication, service and sacrifice of military personnel such as Lakeina “Kia” Francis that “allows us to take for granted that business will go on as usual,” a somber Watt said on this atypical October afternoon.