Students set up remembrance event for 9/11
The girls lacrosse team, football team and a few ROTC students participated in placing approximately 2,977 American flags in honor of the 2,977 who were killed during the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“My brother started this when we lived in North Carolina and he did it because it’s a good way to bring the community together for something that was super important to our country because it’s something that kinda shocked the country at that time,” junior and organizer Caroline Patterson said.
This is the second year the flags are put up on the yard by the lacrosse team, which Patterson brought from her old school in North Carolina. The head coach of the varsity girls lacrosse team Jayne Chapman attended and helped place all the flags.
“Interestingly, we are hitting a point where most current high schoolers were not alive at the time of 9/11 so the flags are a good teaching tool to keep the memory alive and have students want to know more about the event,” Chapman said.
On Sept. 11, 2019, students before school went to the memorial event. PawCappella participated in singing the national anthem that morning for the students.
“It helped out the event because it contributed to the beauty and fit the theme of the event,” sophomore Tess Lowke, who sang, said.
Five students from the JROTC program went out and raised the flag to half-staff that morning in honor of the tragedy. Senior Chad Merritt was one of the students from JROTC.
“It shows respect to our nations colors for all the people that lost their lives on that day,” Merritt said.
Football coach and the sports marketing and social media teacher Robert Weiner attended the morning event and helped place the flags the day before.
“When coach brought up the idea to me, I immediately said yes because I did lose someone very near and dear to me on that day,” Weiner said. “I wanted to make sure that the remembrances of 9/11 were kept alive and most of these young people here today were actually not alive during that time at all so the further we get from it, the closer it is for something in the history books.”
