By Cathy Higgins
BAY MINETTE, Ala. — North Baldwin Center for Technology held a 9/11 remembrance ceremony Monday morning at the school flagpole.
Students, faculty and members of Bay Minette’s first-responders team gathered for the 9 a.m. observance of the 10th anniversary of the Taliban terrorism attack on the United States.
The short ceremony kicked off with four students raising the U.S. flag to half-staff. It was followed by students Mackenzie Boykin and Keegan Miniard reading the poems, “Ladder, Ax and Hose” and “The Company You Keep,” both by Randell Bell Jr.
After a moment of silence, NBCT Principal Holly Resmondo recognized the first responders.
“These are the people out there on the streets making sure we’re safe,” she told the students.
The principal explained that on Sept. 11, 2001, it was first responders in New York City who risked or sacrificed their own lives to help when commercial airplanes had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center, killing those aboard the planes and many in the destroyed buildings.
“I know most of you are too young to remember most of this,” Resmondo said. “I was a teacher in a 10th-grade classroom.”
According to ceremony co-facilitator Josh Pierce, NBCT welding instructor, the students’ ages and the complexity of the issues surrounding 9/11 have made it difficult for the high schoolers to comprehend the history of the day. The same is true nationwide, he pointed out.
“There’s been a study done by Purdue University,” Pierce said in an interview following the ceremony.
To address that, NBCT is teaching curriculum based on a collection of personal narratives of 9/11 survivors on video, “that pause after two minutes and ask viewers to imagine what they’d do in this person’s shoes. The videos then show what the subjects did to help rebuild the city, their lives and the lives of others,” states a previously published USA Today article.
Pierce expressed hope that Monday’s ceremony, paired with the curriculum, will help the Bay Minette students better understand the history of 9/11, which led to U.S. military action felt personally by the NBCT staff.
“I’m a 16-year Army veteran,” Pierce said. “I served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.”
“I have a brother who served eight years in Iraq,” Resmondo added.
