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9/11 Experiences

Stan Masters – Teacher/Consultant

I had just left a meeting at Blissfield High School. I was driving back to my office and heard reports on the radio about some problems happening in New York. When I got back, a small television in a conference room was on, with many of my perrs huddled around the screen. It was then that I realized what had happened…planes hitting the World Trade Center towers. We continued to monitor the siuation as our local schools were treating the events of the day much as they would in a “lockdown situation”. Later in the day, upon hearing that a plane had also crashed into the Pentagon and another had gone down in Pennsylvania, I began to realize the enormous impact that this day was makingin the lives of people in this country and the world.

 

On September 12, I received an email from the Michigan Geographic Alliance, of which I belong as a teacher-consultant. Two friends of mine that I had worked with at the National Geographic Society – Joe Furguson and Ann Judge – were among those that had died at the Pentagon. They were accompanying teachers and students for an NGS learning experience. 9/11 had become even more personal to me. Later, we received word that my brother-in-law trying to get home from the West Coast, delayed by the airport closings across the nation. He got home after a few days, criss-crossing the country by car and finally by plane.