At about 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Lindsey Kelly was in her third-grade math class.
When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, her teacher turned on the TV in the classroom to watch the news. Eight-year-old Kelly didn’t really understand what was going on.
Now, 11 years later, the 19-year-old nursing sophomore feels the impact of the terrorist attack.
“It was a big event that changed everything about the United States,” Kelly said.
The events of 9/11 brought Americans together.
Today at UF, amid controversy and mud-slinging as the two major political parties campaign for the presidency, they’re still together.
The UF College Democrats and UF College Republicans will collaborate for the first time to co-sponsor a tribute ceremony at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Plaza of the Americas. Attendees will light candles, observe a moment of silence and join in a short prayer.
Representatives from each group will speak, said UF College Republicans Chairwoman Katy Melchiorre.
The 21-year-old political science and telecommunication senior said the organization has held a candlelight vigil every year since she was a freshman.
She said it’s nice to take a break from campaigning and work together.
“This means a lot to everybody,” Melchiorre said. “It’s not a partisan issue.”
Billy Farrell, UF College Democrats president, agreed.
“We are all Americans,” the 20-year-old environmental science junior said.
Farrell said in the past, each group held its own tribute.
But with the current political divide due to election season, he said the two groups decided to join together.
They had attempted to co-sponsor events in the past, but this will be their first.
Like Kelly and many current college students, Farrell and Melchiorre were in elementary school when terrorists hijacked two American Airlines flights and two United Airlines flights that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people.
Farrell was in fourth grade but didn’t know anything about it until he came home from school and watched the TV coverage. Melchiorre watched it in her fifth-grade classroom.
Although she had no idea what was happening at the time, she remembers it vividly.
She said future generations may not be able to grasp the significance of 9/11.
“We have to remind them how tragic it was,” Melchiorre said.
Contact Samantha Shavell at sshavell@alligator.org.
