BYBEE-Centerview Elementary School students know how to keep a secret.

For the past several days, students worked feverishly making patriotic posters and signs in preparation for an observance of President's Day, but with a twist.

The signs were also used to welcome E5 Matthew Johnson, a 12-year Navy veteran, to their school for a surprise visit with his twin sons, first-graders Joseph and Jesse.

Johnson, his wife Angela, and their daughter Jayde, arrived at the school shortly after noon on Friday to find the hallways plastered with the students' artwork.

The entire student body lined the hallways to clap and cheer the Johnsons as they strolled toward the first-grade area where his sons and their classmates waited, unaware that their dad was home from his most recent deployment.

Shortly before Johnson reached his sons, third-grader Kerra Lovell sang "The National Anthem" over the school's intercom.

For more details, please see the weekend edition of the Newport Plain Talk.