September Project lets students reflect on 9-11

Sept. 11, 2001, will be a day Central High School senior, Taryn Heid, will remember for the rest of her life.

"It is one of the most important days in our history," she said. "It was a horrible tragedy that really rebirthed patriotism in our country."

Heid was one of many CHS students who participated in the September Project at the school's library Sunday afternoon.

The September Project is a grass-roots effort to encourage public discussions of freedom, democracy and citizenship in libraries around the world. This is the second year CHS has participated in the event.

"It was a life-changing event," said Julia Jorgensen, librarian and coordinator of the September Project. "It's important for our students to pause and remember 9-11 with members of the community."

Students, who represent the school through sports teams, clubs and other organizations, spoke on a common theme which focused around patriotism.

"Sept. 11 changed our world and patriotism helped heal our country," said CHS student Kathleen Steele.

State Sen. Jason Crowell said that it is important to remember Sept. 11 and celebrate patriotism because that is what keeps Americans united.

All Americans are drawn together by the Declaration of Independence, which gives us our freedom, he said.

"No matter who is in power in the government, you all can enjoy freedom," Crowell told the audience.

In between performances from the CHS Fiddle Team, a video was shown featuring graduates of the school, who now live in New York City. The former students gave their accounts of the day that changed U.S. history.

A 1968 graduate, Hollis Headrick is the director for an arts center; he was in a meeting for the center when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

"When we first heard the news, we all thought, that's just ridiculous, it must be a pilot who lost his way," he said. "Then we turned on the television and I was immediately alarmed and in disbelief."

When he left his office that morning, Headrick remembers walking down Eighth Avenue seeing people covered in ashes.

B.J. Nunnelly Adler, a 1967 CHS graduate, shared a similar story.

"I had just gotten to work and I was on the roof of my office building at Scholastic Publishing," she said. "I was talking to a colleague and had my back to the Twin Towers. All of a sudden he said, 'Oh my gosh a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.'"

After the first tower fell, Adler said her office was forced to evacuate.

"Everything downtown was in total destruction," she said. "It looked like a war-torn area."

Audience members wiped tears from their eyes while listening to the first person accounts of Sept. 11, 2001.

"In the midst of this tragedy, we saw acts of courage," Jorgensen said. "Life must and will go on and today, patriotism remains alive and well in our country."

Those in attendance were able to register to vote and write letters to soldiers currently serving in Iraq after the closing of the program.

jfreeze@semissourian.com