Victims, lessons of 9/11 attacks remembered in Las Vegas

Ceremonies around the Las Vegas Valley were held Monday to mark the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bells tolled at a Las Vegas fire station, police officers marched with bagpipes and a flag was rededicated at Palo Verde High School to honor teacher Barbara Edwards, who died in the attack on Washington, D.C.

For the 11th straight year, Palo Verde students honored Edwards, who taught German and French at the school, at a special ceremony at her campus memorial.

The tattered American flag flying over the memorial was lowered as those on the adjacent soccer field observed a moment of silence in honor of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks.

“This reminds us of people who have gone before us,” said Brittany Chambers, a senior in the ROTC program. “We will never forget those lives lost, especially our own, Ms. Barbara Edwards.”

A new flag was then raised over Edwards’ memorial. Flower bouquets and a stuffed bear with red and white stripes decorated the concrete memorial, along with a framed photo of Edwards, who died aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when hijackers crashed it into the Pentagon.

Uniformed ROTC members folded the lowered flag and presented it to Gail Fahy, one of Edwards’ closest friends and former head of the school’s foreign language department.

‘It’s important to not forget’

“It’s important to not forget what happened in the world,” Fahy said.

She described Edwards, who was returning to Las Vegas after attending a friend’s birthday celebration in Virginia, as someone who could pop in her classroom and snap her out of a bad mood.

Monday was Fahy’s birthday, but she said she wouldn’t be celebrating.

“This is Barbara’s day,” Fahy said. Holding the lowered, tattered flag, she smiled, saying, “It feels like having a hug from her.”

In an early ceremony at the Joseph M. Neal STEAM Academy, students were asked to honor the day with an act of kindness.

“We must always defend freedom and democracy and treasure family and community,” said Denise Murray, principal of the elementary school.

Murray and her husband, a retired police lieutenant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, lost 37 friends that day.

She stood next to a plaque with the names and faces of the 37 victims, surrounded by twin tower replicas decorated with tiny American flags bearing the names of all those who died in the attacks.

Although Murray’s students weren’t alive at the time of the attacks, she said she makes a point to talk to the students about the event each year.

“I know they have empathy for me when I tell them my story,” she said.

Attacks discussed in classroom

On Monday and in the week leading up to it, students were watching age-appropriate videos and discussing the attacks with teachers.

“It gives people who weren’t alive at that time of a picture of it,” said 9-year-old Aubrey White, a fifth-grade student at the school. “It was a very sad time.”

At UNLV, members of the College Republicans ignored baking temperatures to plant more than 2,000 American flags outside the student union Monday morning in remembrance of the victims of 9/11.