Students Pay Homage To Patriotism as Adults Recall 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

With two kids by her side, and three others in a semi-circle with their classmates around the flagpole at , Beth Gore remembered where she was and how she felt on Sept. 11, 2001.

She was not alone in those thoughts of remembrance.

“I was at the airport when it happened,” said Dinelia Delgado, also at Kingswood Elementary on Sept. 9, to witness the school’s early morning celebration of Patriotism Day — and the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“I saw the president in the school [in Sarasota, when he first heard the news of the terrorist attacks] and how he reacted,” Delgado said.

Still today, she added, “it hurts.”

Delgado in 2001 was living in New York and she made it home that day to witness for herself a city in crisis. “Horrible, nobody could move,” she said about the sites she remembered seeing. “Everybody was scared.”

It is important, she added, tears brimming in her eyes, that people remember.

“To remember everybody who lost family, I feel sorry for them,” Delgado said. “When it comes to 9/11, I always remember that.”

Kingswood, like scores of schools throughout the nation, each year remembers the events of 9/11 with a celebration of what it means to be patriotic in a country that has survived the horror and prevailed.

“My son, who is 10 years old, was 19 days old when 9/11 happened,” Gore said. “Every year I’m aware of how much has passed by because it happened the year he was born,” she said.

Every year at Kingswood Elementary, she added, “this is a big deal.”

Principal Amber Statham agreed, noting that the Patriotism Day remembrance on school grounds is open to the school community and to “anybody in uniform” who might care to be in attendance.

“Any time I can have the military families in, and I have quite a few of them, I’ll do it, and not just on Veterans Day,” Statham said. “We do something in remembrance of 9/11 so it doesn’t just become a blur, to remember that a lot of people give their lives so others can be safe.”

The event also serves to unite the school, Statham said.

Students in kindergarten and the first grade are asked to wear red shirts. Students in grades 2 and 3, to wear white, and students in grades 4 and 5, to wear blue.

Then, the students line up around the flagpole, where the ritual is the same each year: A high school ROTC squad (this year, from Tampa Bay Tech) brings in the colors, the flag is raised, the Pledge of Allegiance is recited, the flag is lowered, a moment of silence ensues and he ROTC colorguard is dismissed.

This year, students in kindergarten through grade 2 sang, “This Land is Your Land.”

Students in grades 3-5 sang, “America.”

“Personally, I think it’s important to take every opportunity to show patriotism and community involvement and bonding and empathy for hard situations,” Statham said. “This gives people a time to come together and enjoy their love for their country.”