Area communities remember Sept. 11
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WELLSBURG -- Many attending the Brooke County Fair Saturday took time out from its food, fun and games to remember the loss of many, the bravery of many first responders and others and the patriotic unity spurred by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Since 2003, the fair has been held on the second full weekend in September at Brooke Hills Park and each year since 2011, its organizers have included a remembrance of that day as part of its schedule.
This year Donna Sullivan and Lisa Chiodo, members of the Brooke County Veterans Memorial Park Foundation; teamed with Janice McFadden, the foundation’s president and the fair’s co-chair; to organize a service on Saturday.
The trio was aided by Shannon Box of Wellsburg, who performed the national anthem; and members of the Tri-State Young Marines, who raised a U.S. flag near the fairgrounds’ stage to half-staff; and Joelle Devore, the park’s office manager, who gathered materials for the occasion.
The organizers decided also to remember 13 American servicemen and women killed recently by two suicide bombers and a gunman at an Afghanistan airport where many had gathered to flee Taliban rule.
The names of the 13 were displayed on empty chairs in the first row before the stage.
Sullivan read a poem attributed to Hannah Schoechert, said to be a seventh-grader in 2001.
The poem reflects on the shock of many Americans at the fall of the World Trade Center towers while noting the many who responded by raising U.S. flags as a sign of solidarity and calling for action.
“Bin Laden tried to crush our land. But we stood our ground with our flag in hand,” it reads.
McFadden read “A Hero’s Welcome,” a poem by Robert Longley
It is directed at a fallen serviceman, advising he hasn’t failed but inspired others and entreating him to “take your place of honor among those who have gone before. And know you will be remembered for now and evermore.”
At the service’s end, fairgoers released red, white and blue balloons into the sky.
In Steubenville, first responders and city leaders also gathered Saturday for a brief ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Steubenville Fire Chief Carlo Capaldi told the group assembled in front of the Pleasant Heights fire station it's important to take time to remember "all who gave their lives that day trying to help people and also to remember all the citizens who (lost) their lives that day,” reminding those who were in attendance of the timeline from the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center until the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
He recalled walking into the station 20 years ago, "just as the second plane was hitting the building."
"At that time, we realized something very bad was going on," he recalled. "As we watched the events that day, we watched first responders going in and out of the building ... we all knew the clock was ticking until something very bad would happen, and it eventually did.
"That's why we gather every year and remember the events of that day, so we never forget," Capaldi said. "We never forget. We remember the sacrifices of the first responders, we mourn their losses and we mourn the losses of all the citizens so going forward, no one ever forgets what happened that day and people remember what happened."
On hand for the Steubenville ceremony were City Manager Jim Mavromatis, Fifth Ward Councilman Willie Paul and Second Ward Councilman Craig Petrella.
(Staff writer Linda Harris contributed to this report.)