Although the event occurred three years ago, the memories of the attacks remain clear in students’ minds. This past weekend marked the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when terrorists hijacked four U.S. planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an area in Pennsylvania – killing more than 3,000 people.

Katie Wilhelm, senior in FAA, said the memory of the day is still fresh in her mind.

“I remember going to class and learning the news from my professor,” Wilhelm said.

Wilhelm, a member of the University’s Concert Choir, sang with the group Saturday morning for an observance performance at Smith Hall. The musical observance, which was free and open to the public, began at exactly 7:46 a.m. The performance of the song coincided with the exact time that the first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, according to Karl Kramer, the director of the School of Music. After a moment of silence, the choir sang the second song at 8:03 a.m. – the time that the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

“The observance was an opportunity for the community to come together to think, remember and to be reverent and pray if they wanted to,” Kramer said. “It was a time to be silent and reflect to deal with what had happened.”

People deal with situations through different means, and the observance was one of them, Kramer said.

Students also remembered the attacks through a memorial display on Saturday.

Together with the Young America’s Foundation (YAF) and the College of Law chapter of The Federalist Society, graduate student Timothy Bell organized the “9/11: Never Forget Project” on campus. Bell said he was thinking of a different way to remember the different victims of the attack when he came across YAF’s Web site. He found YAF’s idea to plant 3,030 American flags with each flag representing a person who was killed on Sept. 11. Bell and student volunteers from the College of Law planted the flags at 5 a.m. on Cribbet Field, which is the area between Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

The display brought together law student and student groups from all political stripes, Bell said. These groups included the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Federalist Society, the Jewish Law Student Association, the Military Law Society and the Native American Law Students Association.

“After we finished setting up the flags, we got down to say the Pledge of Allegiance,” Bell said. “Students from all different political walks and beliefs stood there with our hands over hearts, honoring those who died that day. It is our hope that this memorial will unite us once again.”

Bell said he believed everyone in the United States and in the world was touched and changed by the attacks.

“We, as a nation, were in disbelief knowing someone’s father, mother, son, daughter would not return home that day,” Bell said. “A lot of us cried, and a lot of us shook with rage. A vast majority of Americans realized that it didn’t matter what each of us did for a living, or what school we went to; we didn’t care what one’s nationality, race or religion was. Sept. 11 brought our nation together.”

Bell plans to store the flags to use again for a memorial display next year.

Over the weekend, other students were too busy with their daily activities to remember the date.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know it was Sept. 11, because I was so busy with work,” said Michelle Lillibridge, senior in LAS. “I do not know anyone who died in the attacks personally, but I know people who do and I sympathize with them. People will remember this (day) for a long time.”

Lillibridge said it was hard to find time to commemorate the day, but if it was more personal to her, she would take more time.

“The Sept. 11 attacks were so removed, that people like me either don’t want to think, don’t like to think or choose not to think about the event,” she said. “But Sept. 11 is a reality; it did happen. People do have to understand that.”