Panthers commemorate 9/11 in Friday night lights
October 2, 2015
Before every football game at Panther Stadium, the crowd rises, removes their hats and stands in attention for the national anthem. However, for the Starr’s Mill vs. Dutchtown game on Sept. 11, the national anthem was performed with a bitter-sweet mood because of the tragic events which occurred on this day 14 years ago.
Before the kickoff, the chorus and Wind Ensemble joined together and performed “America” and “The Star Spangled Banner.”
“It was so fulfilling to perform with the Wind Ensemble to commemorate 9/11 because we were all working together to honor the event and those who lost their lives,” junior chorus member Caroline Poole said.
Even though 9/11 comes every year, it is rare for this day to fall on a football game. Chorus director John Odom and band director Scott King discussed the collaboration last spring after receiving the football schedule. “The chorus always sings the national anthem at one ballgame, usually the second home game,” King said. “Dr. Odom and I have collaborated and combined our students’ talents on many occasions throughout the years, and we thought it would be a good idea since the game fell on 9/11.”
Once the two directors decided to collaborate before this game, the chorus and Wind Ensemble went straight to work, beginning their preparation at the beginning of the school year. “We have been preparing the songs since we came back to school,” junior chorus member Allie Fisher said. “We had one scheduled rehearsal with the band and chorus together, but it ended up getting rained out, so we did a quick run through in the auditorium about a half an hour before [the game].”
The commemoration went over very well among the student body. “It was so beautiful hearing all of the individual parts of the band and chorus come together to honor the events which occurred on 9/11,” junior Madeline Childress said.
In honor of the events which occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, the student section participated in an “America out,” dressing in red, white and blue and cheering on the Panthers with a sense of Panther, and American, pride. “I liked how we all came together wearing the colors because it showed unity, pride in our country and an appreciation for our freedom,” Childress said.
The commemoration began at the beginning of the school day. Every year during first period on 9/11, psychology teacher Sean Hickey reads a speech over the intercom. Hickey and former assistant principal Mike Davis co-wrote this speech to inform students of the events of 9/11 and of the unity in America that followed. There is also a brief moment of silence for those who lost their lives and a playing of the national anthem. “Starr’s Mill makes a special effort to memorialize this day every year,” Hickey said in his commemoration.
The school’s measures to honor those who lost their lives and their loved ones sparked vivid memories for those who were employed or present at the Mill the sullen day the twin towers fell. “It happened when we were a young school just establishing our traditions,” Hickey said in the commemorative speech.
Some of the current faculty of the Mill recall teaching on 9/11. Without the today’s modern technology, information about the terrorist events slowly spread around the school’s faculty through email or word of mouth. “Internet wasn’t the same then as it is now,” calculus teacher JB Campbell said. “Teachers were sent emails saying to keep the televisions off due to a national emergency. We were told to conduct class as normal as possible. Even though we didn’t know all of the details, we knew something bad was going on.”
The current student body is too young to concretely remember 9/11, and the majority of their memories come from the stories told to them by their parents. “My mom told me that we were out shopping when my dad called her he told us to go straight home,” Poole said. “I do not vividly remember much of anything about 9/11.”
Though over a decade has passed since this tragedy, the increase in American unity is felt in the presence of the school halls every day of the year. “Today and all days are important in what we are as a society and a collection of citizens who call ourselves Americans,” Hickey said in the commemorative speech. “Always remember there is a lot more that makes us one than there is that separates us.”
