Teresa Sargeant
Key Points
- Christian Lamphere's Eagle Scout project created Apopka's permanent 9/11 memorial completed in 2016 outside City Hall with World Trade Center steel.
- Apopka's 25th anniversary 9/11 ceremony included first responders and leaders recounting attacks and honoring victims and responders who died later.
- Mayor Nick Nesta emphasized learning from 9/11 by serving neighbors and supporting first responders and military families to promote unity.
Ten years after Christian Lamphere’s Eagle Scout project became Apopka’s permanent 9/11 memorial, he returned Friday to find the community still gathering around it.
For Lamphere, who now lives in Dallas, seeing residents, first responders and city leaders mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks beside the memorial outside Apopka City Hall was “surreal.”
“Even just coming back and seeing it still staying, and everyone keep coming back, is kind of a crazy thing to think about, even 10 years later,” Lamphere said after the ceremony.
Lamphere was among police officers, firefighters, emergency personnel, veterans, military families, city employees, community leaders, residents and elected officials who gathered Friday morning to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks and those who have died from 9/11-related illnesses.
Police Chief Lovetta Quinn-Henry and Fire Chief Wil Rivera-Sanchez recounted the events of Sept. 11, including the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
“In the midst of unimaginable loss, firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, military members, public servants and ordinary citizens answered danger with service,” Quinn-Henry said. “Many entered places where others were fleeing. Many gave their lives so others could live.”
Rivera-Sanchez noted that the human toll continued long after the attacks as rescue and recovery workers were exposed to toxic dust and smoke at Ground zero.
“We remember them as part of the enduring human cost of that day,” Rivera-Sanchez said. “We also honor the families who have carried that weight of the loss for 25 years and the generations now entrusted with preserving the truth of what happened.”
The ceremony also highlighted the City Hall memorial that grew out of Lamphere’s Eagle Scout project.
Lamphere was born more than a year after the attacks. During a family visit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City in 2014, he learned about the victims, final messages left for loved ones and the actions of first responders and others.
The following year, when it was time to choose an Eagle Scout service project, Lamphere — whose father and grandfather served in the fire service — decided Apopka should have a place of its own to remember the attacks.
Completed in 2016 with help from community members, the memorial incorporates a section of steel from the World Trade Center and stands outside City Hall.
Lamphere opted not to address the crowd himself Friday, so Public Information Director Steven Montiero delivered his prepared remarks.
“Each contribution helped turn one Eagle Scout’s idea into a lasting part of this community,” Montiero read from Lamphere’s prepared remarks. “More than anything, the project brought people together.”
Lamphere later told The Apopka Chief he has never been comfortable with public speaking and appreciated Montiero delivering his remarks.
Listening to the police and fire chiefs recount the attacks reminded Lamphere of creating the memorial and of photographs and videos he had seen of Sept. 11.
“I wasn’t born when 9/11 happened,” he said, describing what he experienced during the chiefs’ remarks as “a flood of memories.”
Mayor Nick Nesta used his closing remarks to focus on what remembering Sept. 11 should mean 25 years later.
“Never forget cannot be only a phrase we repeat once a year,” Nesta said. “It must be reflected in how we treat one another, how we serve our neighbors, and how we support our first responders and military families, and how we choose unity when division would be much easier.”
Nesta noted that young adults now serving in the military and public safety were not yet born when the attacks occurred, making it the responsibility of older generations to teach them not only what happened but how Americans responded.
For Lamphere, who belongs to that post-9/11 generation himself, seeing people continue to gather at the memorial was what he had envisioned when he created it.
“All the people coming together,” he said, “and the city just joining together on one specific day to remember something that happened 25 years ago.”