KEARNY/EAST NEWARK –
It was held belatedly only because Kearny High School’s opening was delayed five days due to construction but the annual Sept. 11 Remembrance Ceremony did take place at Kearny High School.
Among the guests participating were Ann Clark Van Hine, a volunteer at the 9/11 Tribute Center, and Robert Strauch, whose brother George was a Kearny resident who perished at the World Trade Center that day.
Helping organize the ceremony, as he has done for the past 15 years, was Kearny’s Martin Nystrom, who noted a new wrinkle in this year’s event.
Each year two American flags are flown at the KHS football field, one from the flagpole near the 9/11 memorial and one over the scoreboard, each representing one of the WTC towers.
Nystrom said that each year, he’s been saving the flags, many needing repairs, so earlier this year, Cleaner America drycleaners on Kearny Ave. generously offered to launder them and KHS students agreed to mend those that were torn.
And, then, to complete the cycle, the Kearny Police Department arranged for the mended flags to be placed in the hands of the Junior Police Cadets who learned the technique of folding flags before being presented at the 9/11 ceremonies.
From there, six of the newly restored flags were distributed to Kearny’s six grammar schools to be raised at those sites so that each school got to share in the memorial proceedings.
In neighboring East Newark, on Sept. 12, students and staff, including crossing guards, of the East Newark Public School gathered with Mayor Joseph Smith and other borough officials, along with members of the borough police and fire departments, and Brave Women Fighting Breast Cancer, to remember the 9/11 tragedy.
Borough Clerk Robert Knapp, who has led the proceedings through the years, related the story of the Twin Towers disaster and bells rang out in memory of the lives lost on that day.
