An Historic Visit

Yesterday May 30, 2012 marked the first time Chardon Middle School students have visited a permanent memorial to the brave passengers and crew of United Flight 93 at Shanksville, Pennsylvania in Somerset County. Over the last seven years we have visited three different temporary sites. In 2009 we were joined at the site by family members Debby Borza and Kenny Nacke. Students were part of a music video that was filmed there-it can be found on YouTube. In 2010 3 students from nearby Shanksville-StoneyCreek High School joined us to discuss what it was like on 9/11/2001. Last year local resident Val McClatchey joined us at the site. Val had come to our school three months earlier to share her photograph and other memorabilia. Val took the first photo of Flight 93. It is an iconic image that has traveled the world. It shows a huge gray cloud of smoke over a bucolic country scene of a red barn. Her photo is one of about 8 displays at the Memorial Plaza at the entrance to the Memorial. Rangers entered our busses to discuss the events of that fateful day in 2001. We had spent quite a bit of time to prepare our students for this visit-to explain that this is a solemn place-really a cemetary. I was fortunate to have been part of the weekend of activities at the site on September 10th and 11th. My daughter and I were honored to be part of the group of volunteers who placed nearly 3,000 luminarias on the walkway to honor all who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. About a month ago I visited again with my colleague from Chardon Middle School-Jim DiPofi. Yesterday marked my first visit with students-students who only know about 9/11 from what others have told them or what they have read. Overall I was pleased with the respect they showed. Many told me how sad they were. One student asked if I knew one of the passengers had been pregnant. I was interviewed by Randy Griffth of the Johnstown Tribune Democrat. This always makes me a bit awkward to be the center of attention and to put in words why this is sacred ground and a special place for me. I think it may be because United Flight 93 instead of continuing its intended path to San Francisco turned around just west of Cleveland and began to move toward its intended target of Washington D. C. and the Capitol. I have had many people over the years tell me they or someone close to them saw the plane. I never know what to do with this information, but I do try to share information with my students at the site. About a month ago I had lunch with Debby Borza who is the mother of youngest hero Deora Bodley. She is an amazing woman. On September 11, 2009 she took me and another colleague Julie Kenny to the impact site. Words cannot describe that experience. Only family members can visit the impact site. Debby encouraged me to join the Friends of Flight 93 about 2 years ago and this summer for the first time I will begin a new chapter at the site as I volunteer as a Plaza Greeter. I hope I can do justice to honor the brave heroes of United Flight 93.

3rd Annual Flight 93 Community Dinner

On Saturday May 19th at the St. Mary's Banquet Hall, we will host our 3rd annual Flight 93 community dinner. The cost is $25.00 for a full buffet dinner. There is a special student cost of $20.00. We will be raffling 40 gift baskets for the 40 heroes of Flight 93. In 2010 we hosted two family members-Sandy Felt the widow of hero Edward Felt and Debby Borza, the mother of youngest hero Deora Bodley. Sunday I shared lunch with Debby. She was in Ashtabula visiting relatives. She is such a brave, compassionate, caring, intelligent woman. She can talk about the events of the day when she lost her daughter with such calm, but at the same time with emotion. Ironic I know. After just a few moments of hearing her speak you realize you are with a great person. It is an honor to know her. I told her she is my friend yet every time I am with her, I feel like I should be taking copious notes. Last year David and Peggy Beamer were our guests. David first came to our school and community in 2009. Whenever he is in Chardon it is a bit of a homecoming as they were born and raised in Salem and David is a proud graduate of Ohio State University. Last summer I posted a blog about my visit to Somerset County. On Father's Day my daughter and I saw a very special presentation of The Guys. This is a play written by Anne Nelson-a true story about how she met and connected with a NYFD captain in the days after 9/11/2001. The captain had to eulogize several of his men and was confused as to how to proceed. The two were able to collaborate. It is a very moving, emotional story and we will present it this May as a way to honor all the 9/11 first responders as well as our local first responders. A flyer for the event can be found on the Chardon Local Schools website. Doors will open at 6:00 so guests can peruse the baskets and purchase tickets. The special presentation of The Guys will precede dinner at 7:00.

A Finished Product

On Monday March 19th artist Augusto Bordelois and his crew installed the two murals at Chardon Middle School. Each mural has a permanent home atop a very visible staircase at our school. In a word the murals are stunning. Not just one or two or a few, but everyone that stops me tells me they are beautiful. They don't just say it-they make a point of stopping, emphasizing their choice of words, maybe touching my arm. The praise usually comes with a thank you. People I don't normally see on a daily basis make a point of finding me to make sure they share their appreciation. It is a testament I believe not to me, but to the artist, to the students who created it, and most importantly to all of the nearly 3,000 Americans who passed on 9/11/2001. It is a reminder of what happened that day. Etched across one of the murals is We Will Never Forget 9/11. Now we have a visual reminder of that-something very palpable we will pass each day. When I leave the middle school, the murals will remain. When this group of sixth graders moves on to the high school, the murals will remain. When they graduate from Chardon High School and leave their hometown for college or other adventures the murals will remain. One of the murals has two first responders, and Welles Crowther-the Man in the Red Bandanna-(whom I have written about previously)next to the iconic American symobol-the eagle. Welles's story lives on in this mural. I have been in touch with his mother Alison who is such a gracious woman and a filmmaker from New York City Matthew Weiss. He is making a documentary about Welles. Part of his movie will be about the impact Welles has had on people who never even met him. On the day the murals were completed, I made my way up the steps and a former student looked at the mural and said, "That's the man in the red bandanna" Welles has impacted our students just as 9/11 has impacted all of us-even those too young to remember that day. One teacher sent me a particularly moving e-mail. Some of his words will become part of plaques that will accompany the murals. A dedication ceremony will be held in May.

Among the Heroes

Last October I attended a forum on teaching about 9/11 to young students. It was at an excellent facility-the Fred Rogers Center on the lovely campus of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. By the way, Fred Rogers is a hero in that part of the state. I learned that day that Jere Longman, the author of Among the Heroes-about the crew and passengers of Flight 93-had spoken at St. Vincent a week earlier. Jere is a columnist for the New York Times, primarily a sports writer, but he lives in Philadelphia. His most well-known book before Among the Heroes, was about the great U. S. Women's soccer team that won the World Cup (remember Brandi Chastain celebrated by whipping off her shirt?). I have since learned how Jere originally became involved in Flight 93 by watching a YouTube video of his speech at St. Vincent last October. On 9/11 Jere learned about the World Trade Center from his wife who had viewed it on television. He watched, called work, and made plans to get to NYC, but then discovered that would be impossible because of travel restrictions. After Flight 93 went down in Somerset County, he made plans to travel across the state where he spent the next four days. He wasn't really prepared to write a book as he still had his full-time sports writing duties, and was given a March deadline to have a manuscript in place. I first read this book in 2009 and later that year wrote a grant to purchase 50 of them. I would sell the books when ever our school did fundraisers. Some time later when we made presentations such as at city council meetings I would give the book away to city leaders, firefighters, police officers, and other first responders. It is an excellent book-literally hard to put down. Each passenger and crew member has a riveting life story. In the course of writing, Jere comes to the conclusion that the reason those passengers and crew members were able to subdue the hijackers and land the plane in a field saving thousands of lives was because all of them had some extraordinary characteristics and were at the top of their game. Long story short is that this week I was able to get Jere's contact info from Don Orlando who handles public relations at St. Vincent. Several e-mails later and Jere has tentatively agreed to come to Chardon Saturday May 18, 2013 to speak at our annual Flight 93 dinner. In one of those rare twists it turns out Jere penned another book titled Not Without Hope. He co-authored the true life story with Nick Schuyler who is a former student at Chardon Middle School. Almost three years ago Nick and three friends left the coast of Florida for a fishing trip. The expedition went bad very quickly. Three of the men died, but Nick incredibly survived.

NYC

Most days we get up, go to work, and go through the humdrum motions of everyday life. That sounds very cynical especially from me because I really enjoy my job-even after 33 years! My point is some days we get a real surprise-something that makes everything else pale in comparison. On Monday it was an envelope in my mailbox at school. The return address was from New York City. I immediately thought it was bad news. I recently purchased (through the generous help of our PTO)the rights to a play The Guys, which I have written about in past blogs. The Guys, written by Annie Nelson, is a play based on a true story. Not long after 9/11 a NYC fire captain was asked to eulogize several of his guys. He struggled, but then was hooked up with a writer who helped with the process. The play is the two of them on a stark stage discussing the guys, life, and much more. I would like to present the play as part of our annual Flight 93 dinner on Saturday May 19th at St. Mary's Banquet Hall. I'm still looking for two actors. Being a producer is a new role for me. Ha! Back to the letter. It wasn't a rejection for my license to produce The Guys, but it was from a gentleman named Matthew Weiss. He is making a documentary about Welles Remy Crowther. Welles is the Man in the Red Bandanna. I first read about his story on the weekend before 9/11/11 in USA Weekend, then a day later saw the short film about him on ESPN. It is still on their website. After that weekend I knew I had to do something to share Welles's story. One of our teachers helped me. She runs our Junior Teen Institute and every fall schools across the country honor the memory of a DEA agent who was killed many years ago in Colombia. Red Ribbon Week involves a different activity each day of the week so one of our days was Red Bandanna Day. We sold red bandannas for $2.00 and many staff members and students participated. Our yearbook adviser took pictures-many pictures, and put together a very professional Power Point complete with music. I mailed it to The Crowther Foundation. I have received thank you e-mails from Alison-Welles's mother and his sister. Matthew Weiss, the filmmaker, was asking for permission to use this video in his film. The point of his project is to show how Welles's story affected people who never met him. I called him and we spoke for some time and I shared information about our 9/11 mural. When our artist Augusto Bordelois was asking for ideas from our students every class mentioned The Man in the Red Bandanna. Welles is part of our mural-right between a police officer and a firefighter!

Flight 93 Mural Nears Completion

The sixth grade students at Chardon Middle School moved a little closer this week to the completion of their Flight 93 mural. Last week students painted the boards which served as a color code for their work this week as cut and rounded glass of many colors was glued to the boards. Very exciting! Perhaps the most interesting part of the process was how many staff members and former students came to our classrooms to see the progress. The word that seemed to come up the most was "cool." Indeed! Our class worked on Wednesday, but when I came back to school on Thursday morning it seemed like the boards gleamed even brighter than when I left the previous afternoon. The colors on the mural are brilliant. Blues, reds, whites, greens, etc. Something unanticipated happened this week as well. We had planned to place the completed murals in an unused outdoor space. However, our artist Augusto Bordelois has been making more trips around our building as his visits have increased. He has spotted several hallway spaces that might make a better permanent home for the murals. Several teachers have echoed the same thought. And then one of our social studies teachers came up with a really novel idea. He feels that before the murals find their permanent home we should have them on temporary display throughout Chardon. Interesting thought if not the most practical as the murals are heavy. I'm learning a lot about public art. Yesterday I read some 30 murals that have been housed in the former TRW building on Euclid Avenue in Euclid may be demolished along with the building when a new developer takes possession. What a loss. The murals depict Americans at work and date back over 50 years. I hope such a future never awaits our murals. One of the lessons Augusto taught the students was just this. What would the students say to their children or grandchildren many years from now when they viewed the murals? And if we move the murals to an indoor space what will an accompanying plaque say that is proper and fitting? Decisions.

The Year in Review

As 2011 comes to an end it is time for newspapers and magazines to put together lists like the Top 10 News Stories of the year or the Ten Most Interesting People of 2011. TIME recently named its Person of the Year and the winner was The Protester. In its recent December 26th issue TIME also had a short list and one of those was Admiral William McRaven who leads the Navy Seals. It was Admiral McRaven who spoke to President Obama and others in real time as Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was being taken down by the now famous Navy Seal Team Six. The day after that as America celebrated with a renewed sense of vigor and patriotism I was interviewed by the News Herald. Rachel Jackson, the reporter, asked for my reaction. I spoke to her for a long time and was surprised to find an entire article the next day. I thought I would be one of a handful of folks interviewed. I told Rachel that day in early May that I thought bin Laden's death showed all those soldiers did not die in vain nor did all the brave heroes of 9/11. I went on to say that the families of those heroes were in my thoughts and that there must now be some closure for them. I was wrong. The next day I saw an interview with a 9/11 mom at Ground Zero. She said there was no closure-there never would be. She was not bitter, just stating a fact. So our work continues as it does for the families. 2011 saw the opening of three stunning memorials-in New York City, in Virginia at the Pentagon, and at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA. I have written in earlier blogs about my visits to PA, especially the one on September 10th when my daughter and I were honored to be volunteers in preparing for the moving luminaria ceremony and then the next day when President and Mrs. Obama visited with family members just a few feet from us. Our 8th grade class will again visit D. C. next May and one of their points of interest is the Pentagon Memorial. Individuals aren't much different than news organizations. In winding up a year we look back, reflect, and then make some promises for the next year. I would really like to get to New York City in 2012 and visit the World Trade Center site and the Tribute Museum. I would also like to continue to honor all the 9/11 heroes and their families.