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September 11th, 2006
BRADENTON - Lowered to half-mast in memory of 9/11/2001, the large American Flag in front of the School Support Center swayed in soft breeze Monday morning as more than 100 district employees gathered for a ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our country.
Led by Director of High Schools Roy Larson, district administrators and support employees formed a semi-circle around the flag at 8:45 a.m. as traffic moved busily along Manatee Avenue. Larson led the group in a moment of silence in memory of the victims of 9/11, then the group placed their hands over their hearts and said the Pledge of Allegiance.
At that point, Loretha Franklin, an Accounting Manager at the School Support Center, stood at the flag's base and led the gathering in singing, “God Bless America.”
The employees then quietly went back to work in the school district's main administration building located at 215 Manatee Avenue West. Some tears were shed and hugs shared during the ceremony.
Schools in the Manatee County School District were observing the fifth-anniversary in a variety of ways.
The students and staff at Ballard Elementary Global Studies Magnet School boarded buses and headed to Rossi Park in Bradenton to take part in a morning memorial service titled “A Tribute to Heroes.” Participating in the memorial service was a perfect match for Ballard's magnet theme, which encourages students to be good global citizens and to honor and respect the people who serve and protect us.
In the afternoon, students at Bayshore High gathered at four different locations on their campus to take part in simultaneous international sing-a-long of the Beatle's song: “All You Need is Love.” The Bayshore students were stationed at the four different sites in honor of the four planes that crashed on 9/11.
Other schools in the district marked the occasion with quiet moments of reflection and discussions of the events of that day in History and Social Studies classes.
Photos of the event, click to enlarge - files are very large.