Morning clouds disappeared and the sun shone on Todd Beamer High School as students gathered Friday to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and those who lost their lives that day.
The Federal Way high school is named after Beamer, a passenger on Flight 93 who became a household name after the attacks.
He’s credited with shouting, “Let’s roll,” before a group of passengers forced their way into the cockpit and disrupted hijackers who are believed to have intended to crash the jet into either the White House or the Capitol.
Instead, the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa.
On Friday, about 2,000 students, school staff members and dignitaries assembled on the football field of Todd Beamer’s namesake school.
“They’re never going to forget all the people who died,” said senior Nathan Ceney, who attended Lakeland Elementary School on Sept. 11, 2001. “I thought it was a movie or something on TV. Who in their right minds would crash into two magnificent towers?”
Federal Way Mayor Skip Priest encouraged the students to not live their lives in fear. He quoted President Franklin D. Roosevelt: “‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ The power to resist fear, however, is in each one of you.”
Tears rolled down some faces when Deputy Chief Gordie Olson of South King Fire & Rescue spoke of how he and other firefighters felt when they realized how many colleagues had died.
His agency brought back a beam from one of the World Trade Centers. It was on display at the school Friday and will reside at fire Station 64 starting next year.
“It truly surprises me how much emotions range from the artifact,” Olson said.
The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps presented Beamer principal Randy Kaczor with an American flag engraved with the names of those who lost their lives because of the 9/11 attacks, including Todd Beamer.
The school will also receive a rock from the crash site in Pennsylvania and plans a memorial display.
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