The Vicksburg National Military Park is among 37 Mississippi businesses, school systems and various other entities nominated for the 2012 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award to be presented later this year.

Support for national guard personnel and reservists can include driving a deployed employee’s children to school, replacing a military employee’s broken family refrigerator while serving abroad or working overtime to cover service member’s shifts, according to a release from Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, a Department of Defense agency. ESGR received 3,236 nominations from guard and reservists nationwide. Up to 15 recipients will be announced later this summer and honored Sept. 20 at the 17th annual ceremony in Washington, D.C.

“Guardsmen and reservists continue to receive outstanding support from their employers,” said ESGR national chair James G. Rebholz. “America’s employers have not wavered in their commitment to these citizen warriors.”

The recognition comes after the park won the state-level Above and Beyond Award Feb. 10 at a ceremony in Jackson. Superintendent Mike Madell and chief of operations Rick Martin, a colonel in the Mississippi National Guard, were given the award by Brig. Gen. Augustus L. Collins, adjutant general of the guard. The award is given only to the top 10 percent of employers who go “above and beyond legal requirements for supporting guardsmen and reservists,” said a release from the guard’s joint force headquarters in Jackson.

About half of the U.S. military is comprised of guard personnel and reservists. Nominations for the Freedom Award from all 50 states, U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., may be viewed at www.FreedomAward.mil. Semifinalists for the honor were set to be announced by April.