SkillsUSA Visits the Flight 93 Memorial

In 2001, the SkillsUSA state gold medalists were in preschool and kindergarten.

Their parents can recall where they were when the Twin Towers fell. With tears, their teachers can tell them their story, too. Most of America remember that strangely beautiful, cloudless day.

However, for these students from Lawrence County CTC, they were way too young to feel the impact on the day that changed our world. All they’ve known is from videos and tributes that everyone plays year after year. However — on their way home from their state capitol visit, SkillsUSA state gold medalists, Sammie McKnight, Ava King, Lynnden Cummins, Madison Werner, Riley Barge, Aaliyah Kinney, and Gabrielle Treece; Joy Hudspath knew they were looking at items recovered from hallowed ground.

They knew they were a few hundred yards from the invisible scar that was once carved into the earth. In a field now dressed in springtime green, they could see the large boulder that marks the spot where Flight 93 came to its final stop.

in the somber visitor center, the national team members spent the majority of their time as raindrops dropped like a thousand tears outside. Curved concrete walls shaped like weathered hemlock sliced into the sky marking the path of Flight 93. Inside visitors could see the timeline that tells the story of the day, artifacts from the plane, crew members, and passengers, patches from the volunteers, and photographs of the passengers which put a face to the tragedy.

One of the most memorable aspects of the exhibition was an interactive wall that showed an empty cabin — perhaps what the passengers would have seen. Then, visitors could raise an audio speaker to their ear to hear the voice of the actual innocents, calling home and leaving a message on their answering machines. It was a somber look into what occurred from their point of view that day.

Afterward, they traveled down to Memorial Plaza to lay flowers — one from each student and advisor — at the base of the American flag that sits just before the black granite walkway that once marked the crash site and debris field, and ultimately the resting place of the forty passengers and crew.

Perhaps in the Septembers to come, these students might look back on this day . . . and remember . . . and connect.