Residents Have Options To Observe 9/11

Newtowners have a variety of ways to observe the tenth anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday.

Local resident and former American Stock Exchange floor broker Howard Lasher invites the public to attend a special memorial service at 8:15 am September 11 at his Route 302 property in Dodgingtown. Newtown Boy Scout Troop 270 will be in attendance at the annual ceremony commemorating those lost during the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., along with the victims aboard United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

Mr Lasher’s property borders the Newtown-Bethel line and is the site of a grove of maple trees painted by local artist David Merrill to represent the American flag. The art honors several of Mr Lasher’s friends and colleagues killed in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Music will be performed by the Newtown High School Chorus and soprano Dolores Lussier.

A ceremony is also being planned by Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company at its main station at 18-20 Riverside Road. This ceremony will begin at 8:30 am. Board of Fire Commissioners Chairman Kevin Cragin will serve as the event’s emcee. Guest speakers will include Sandy Hook Fire & Rescue Chief Bill Halstead, Newtown Police Chief Mike Kehoe, and Monsignor Robert Weiss, pastor of St Rose of Lima Church.

Invitations have been extended to Botsford, Dodgingtown, Hawleyville, and Hook & Ladder fire companies, the members of Newtown Police Department, Emergency Communications Center, Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Newtown Underwater Search And Rescue, and members of the Southbury Volunteer Fire Department. Weather permitting, the ceremony will be held outdoors and it is expected to last approximately one hour.

As part of a performance at Edmond Town Hall Sunday afternoon, Peggy Pearson & Winsor Music will offer the world premier of a musical tribute to those lost, the survivors and the nation on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The 3 pm concert will also feature several young musicians in quartet and quintet combinations.

As a memorial and tribute to the 9/11 attack, Ms Pearson commissioned a composition for the occasion titled “The Eagle, A Song Without Words.” Young composer and Winsor Music member Lev Mamuya used Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Eagle” as his inspiration.

“In addition to reflecting on the simultaneous frailty and fierceness of the eagle, I have also tried to incorporate my experience as a 5-year-old during the events of 9/11 and to express the tension I perceived between the innocence and playfulness of my childhood world and the strain and tension of the adults around me,” he said.

The concert will also include music by Haydn, Bach, and Mendelssohn. Tickets are $20, cash or check only, and will be available at the town hall’s box office beginning at 2 pm Sunday. Students in grades K–12 are admitted free of charge when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult.

For information on this event, visit NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org or call 203-426-6470.

C.H. Booth Library at 25 Main Street will also offer a musical tribute on Sunday afternoon at 3 pm. The free concert by violinists Lindsey Jones and Hafez Taghavi will be held in the art alcove on the library’s third floor, and feature selections from Bach, Gluck, Schubert, Mozart, Massonet, and Vivaldi.

Also, the 11th Annual CT United Ride will take place on Sunday. The state’s largest 9/11 event ceremony begins at Captain’s Cove Marina in Bridgeport, bringing a parade of motorcycles on a 60-mile route through 11 communities including Newtown.

Last year’s event attracted nearly 2,500 motorcycles. The local route enters Newtown on Dodgingtown Road/Route 302 at the Bethel Line and follows 302 to its intersection with Main Street and then follows Route 25 south into Monroe.

The parade of motorcycles was estimated to be nine miles long in 2010, and at one point the procession reportedly extended from the Bethel-Newtown town line all the way to the Newtown-Monroe town line.

The route goes in front of Dodgingtown fire house, at 55 Dodgingtown Road, and Botsford fire house, 315 Main Street South. Hook & Ladder and Sandy Hook firefighters will be stationed, using their ladder trucks to fly a large flag over Main Street for the riders to drive under near Amaral Motors at 40 South Main Street.

The public is invited to join firefighters at any of these locations, or from any point along the route.

Motorists should also note that the ride can take up to 30 minutes to fully pass through an area and plan their travel through town on Sunday accordingly.