Sept. 11 Anniversary Events

By WYDaily Staff Sunday, September 11, 2011

There will be a Remembrance Walk, William and Mary Remembrance Ceremony and an Interfaith Remembrance Service in Williamsburg for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. If you know of other 9/11 events that are open to the public, please post them in the comments.

Remembrance Walk
Colonial Williamsburg and the Greater Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance are sponsoring  the 9/11 Remembrance and Freedom Walk , beginning at 1 p.m. on Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of terrorist attacks.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Fifes and Drums, a Joint Color Guard, First Responder Colors and Military First Responder senior officials will also be joining the community as they walk from Merchants Square to the Courthouse on Duke of Gloucester Street.

At the Courthouse, participants in a ceremony will remember the events of Sept. 11; John Garay of the Alliance Armed Forces Committee will offer introductions, retired U.S. Army Sgt. Terry Harper will sing the national anthem and Lt. Cmdr. Karl A. Lindblad, command chaplain at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown, will give the invocation.

Paul Freiling, vice mayor of the City of Williamsburg, will welcome officials and guests and Colonial Williamsburg’s Fifes and Drums will perform. Patrick Henry, portrayed by Richard Schumann, will give remarks. The program closes with the singing of “God Bless America.”

William and Mary remembers
The College of William and Mary will mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with several events on Sunday, including a remembrance ceremony.

The College’s Wren Bell will toll at 8:46 a.m., 9:03 a.m., 9:45 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., the times when planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and when United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

The Queens’ Guard will place a memorial wreath by the Sunken Garden around 8 a.m. and post a guard by it until 4 p.m. Additionally, the College’s Young Republicans and Young Democrats will post flags in the Sunken Garden in memory of those who died on 9/11.

At noon, the Wren Chapel will open for individual prayer, meditation and reflection. The chapel will remain open until 7 p.m.

Remembering Todd Weaver
The College’s ROTC cadets will lead a “ruck march” through the campus at 4 p.m., beginning in the parking lot of Morton Hall and concluding near the Wren Building around 4:45 p.m. There, a mock plaque created in honor of the late Army 1st Lt. Todd Weaver ‘08 will be unveiled.

Weaver was a William and Mary graduate who joined the Army National Guard after the Sept. 11 attacks and served a 10-month deployment in Iraq in 2004. In September 2010, Weaver died in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after his unit was attacked with an improvised explosive device.

Following Weaver’s death, a memorial fund was created to sponsor a scholarship for a William & Mary student to spend a semester abroad. The fundraising campaign in Weaver’s honor, started by the College’s Student Athletic Advisory Council, included the sale of wristbands bearing the logo “One Tribe. One Family.”

A candlelight vigil for Weaver will be held at 7:45 p.m. at the tree that was planted in his honor last year. The memorial tree is located to the left of the Brafferton Building. John McGlennon, chair of the government department, will read the proclamation of the scholarship dedicated to Weaver at the ceremony.

An exhibit titled “Losing Todd: A Mother’s Journey,” featuring paintings created by Jeanne Weaver in honor of her son, will be on display in the Sadler Center through Oct. 22.

Remembrance ceremony
A remembrance ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. in the Wren Courtyard. The event will include the tolling of the Wren Bell for each of the seven alumni who died in the attacks. Chon Glover, assistant to the president for diversity and community initiatives, will read their names. President Taylor Reveley will give remarks and representatives from across the campus community will present selected readings at the ceremony.

The seven William & Mary alumni who died in the Sept. 11 attacks were Alysia Christine Burton Basmajian, James Lee “Jimmy” Connor, Michael Hardy Edwards, Mark Gavin “Lud” Ludvigsen, Christopher William Murphy, James Brian Reilly and Gregory J. Trost.

Sept. 11 inspired art unveiled
“First Hit” is the first 21st-century folk art painting acquisition by Colonial Williamsburg’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, which went on view Sept. 9 in the introductory gallery of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.

“First Hit” is a 2002 oil painting by Virginia Beach artist Betty Herbert that depicts the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center.

Herbert began painting in 1983 after learning that her husband, Joe Banks, was terminally ill. She says the creative process possesses her at times. “I simply start and the canvas dictates to me and I listen,” Herbert said in a press release.

Oil paintings dominate Herbert’s output while she occasionally works in other mediums. Various techniques support her bold, spontaneous, and direct application of paint. Some pictures incorporate drips, spatters and runs of paint liberally thinned with turpentine. Others derive more effect from impasto — thickly applied paint — which in “First Hit” seems to underline the violence of the scene.

Interfaith 9/11 Service of Remembrance, Reconciliation, and Restoration
An interfaith service in remembrance of Sept. 11 will be held at 7 p.m. at Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg. The service will have clergy from St. Bede Roman Catholic Church, St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Stonehouse Presbyterian Church, Wellspring United Methodist Church, Temple Beth El, the William and Mary Muslim Student Association and others.