County marks 9/11’s 10th anniversary

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It was a day for prayer, for music, for tears and for laughter, as Van Wert County residents — and America — commemorated the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place September 11, 2001.

A number of area fire departments held events honoring 9/11 and the firefighters who gave their lives in an attempt to rescue people from the World Trade Center and Pentagon. As Van Wert Fire Chief Jim Steele noted, more firefighters were killed on 9/11 than in any other single event in America’s history.

To honor those sacrifices, the city fire department held a 5K walk-run and an open house at the fire station on Sunday afternoon.

Several volunteer fire departments joined together in Rockford for a fundraiser. Fire departments involved included Willshire, Ohio City, Rockford, Mendon, and Chattanooga, with most of the proceeds going to the departments to purchase new equipment. The departments also donated money raised as part of a 50/50 drawing to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation in memory of the 343 New York City Fire Department members who were killed while trying to rescue people at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Van Wert Victory Church and First Friends Church also spearheaded a prayer and remembrance ceremony in front of the Courthouse on Sunday afternoon.

But the pièce de résistance of the day was the 9/11 concert held at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center featuring the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, under Conductor Alexander Constantine, a 53-member Van Wert Men’s Chorus and a number of soloists, including Van Wert tenor Jake Wilder.

The concert was spectacular, with music both moving and rousing. Highlights of the concert included Wilder’s renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music, and the Van Wert Men’s Chorus’ singing of Randall Thompson’s “Testament of Freedom” and “American Salute.”

Tammie Huntington, a music professor at Indiana Wesleyan, also sang a moving rendition of the “Pie Jesu” (Peeay Yayzu) from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, while the Fort Wayne Philharmonic was excellent in support of the singers and on their own performing “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland, “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber, an excellent version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, the World War II anthem, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” featuring a trumpet solo by NPAC Executive Director Paul Hoverman, “I am the American Flag” by Beckel, and the “Armed Forces Salute” by Lowden.

The regular program ended with a sing-a-long called “Sing Out America” that included a number of traditional patriotic American tunes and an encore of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars & Stripes Forever.”