WestChesterBuzz.com

To let West Chester and Liberty Township residents catch up with the news that they need to know, WestChesterBuzz.com will list and link to all of last week’s top local stories every Monday.

West Chester remembers 9/11 – West Chester community members gathered at Chesterwood Village last Tuesday morning for a 9/11 remembrance event. The program featured a 9/11 display, a brief ceremony, as well as dozens and dozens of American flags.

Lakota seniors look back on Sept. 11 as first graders – It was an odd day. Union Elementary first grader Jeff Back didn’t understand why recess was being held inside on such a beautiful day or why so many of his classmates were being picked up from school by their parents. Meanwhile, at Liberty Elementary, Anna Starr was starting to get jealous. Why wasn’t her mom picking her up? What was so special about today? It was Sept. 11, 2001.

Union Centre Music and Food Festival returns this fall – Last year, trying to escape the extreme heat of late August, the Union Centre Merchants Association decided to take control of its signature summertime festival at the Square at Union Centre and move it to mid-October. This year’s event, to be held Sept. 28-29, will look very similar, maybe minus the bad weather, to the event held last October. Again, the festival will feature free admission, numerous bands and food from local restaurants.

Police warn of car break-ins near West Chester – Rachel Richardson reported last week there was a spike in the number of automobile break-ins – up to 17 in one night – has prompted police in the neighboring city of Mason to warn residents: If you like it, lock it. Police say that 28 break-ins have been reported in several of the city’s northwest neighborhoods that border West Chester, including Birchwood Farms, Codington Reserve and Hickory Woods.

RASKALS seeks volunteers for fall chores – A local community service program called Random Acts of Simple Kindness Affecting Local Seniors (RASKALS) is looking for volunteers to help senior citizens with outdoor chores this fall. The West Chester Township program, which is offered twice each year, helps local seniors with window washing, raking, trimming shrubs, painting fences, spreading mulch, planting flowers and other chores.

Local students named National Merit semifinalists – A total of 10 local students have been named semifinalists in the 2013 Natioinal Merit Scholarship Program. The students are among approximately 16,000 named this week in the program. The recognized students include Jeffrey Back, Christina Clyde, Meghan Gibbons, Sophia Li, Jamie Silva and Jasmine Tuazon of Lakota East; Ethan Bennett, Paul Register and Abd Alrahman Traboulsi of Lakota West; and Amber Nix of West Chester (homeschool).

Posted in: Business, Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Chesterwood Village, Music and Food Festival, Square at Union Centre, the Square at Union Centre, Union Centre Boulevard Bash, Union Centre Boulevard Blast, Union Centre Boulevard Merchant Association, Union Centre Merchant Association, Union Centre Music and Food Festival, West Chester photos

It was an odd day.

Union Elementary first grader Jeff Back didn’t understand why recess was being held inside on such a beautiful day or why so many of his classmates were being picked up from school by their parents.

Meanwhile, at Liberty Elementary, Anna Starr was starting to get jealous.

Why wasn’t her mom picking her up?

What was so special about today?

It was Sept. 11, 2001.

It was a day not easily forgotten by Hannah Lee.

Lee remembers briefly watching the news coverage in her first grade classroom.

“The World Trade Center! I was just there,” said Lee, who went on a trip to visit relatives in New York City three weeks prior to the attacks.

Her teacher looked at her. The television was quickly turned off.

While she was only in first grade, Lee knew something terrible had just happened. She knew her uncle worked at the World Trade Center. She knew that her other uncle was a New York City fire fighter.

A lot of her family lives there.

She wondered: Are they ok?

Fellow first graders Keith Brady and Jake Chestnut remember their teachers whispering in the hallway.

Why were their teachers crying? (more…)

Posted in: News |

Tags: Tags: 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Anna Starr, Hannah Lee, Jake Chestnut, Jeff Back, Keith Brady, Lakota East, Lakota High School

West Chester community members gathered at Chesterwood Village late Tuesday morning for a 9/11 remembrance event.

The program featured a 9/11 display, a brief ceremony, as well as dozens and dozens of American flags.

• AP: Fewer 9/11 families on hand for 11th anniversary

Participating in the ceremony were children from West Chester Christian Child Care, who sang patriotic themed songs for community members and residents of Chesterwood Village in West Chester.

Also participating in the event, was Bill Bross of St. Susanna Catholic Church, who led a prayer; the West Chester Police Department Honor Guard, which raised a large America flag; and the Four Hoarseman, a barbershop quartet, who also sang patriotic music.

Posted in: Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Chesterwood Village, West Chester photos

On Tuesday, Chesterwood Village in West Chester will be hosting a 9/11 remembrance event at 10 a.m. The event will feature a 9/11 display, a brief ceremony, as well as free flags and pins.

The program will begin with singers from the West Chester Christian Child Care at 10 a.m., followed by a prayer by Bill Bross of St. Susanna Catholic Church at 10:10 a.m., a flag raising by the West Chester Police Department Honor Guard at 10:15 a.m., which will be followed by a patriotic music performance by a barbershop quartet called the Four Hoarsemen.

• Share other local 9/11 remembrance events with WestChesterBuzz

Chesterwood Village is located at 8073 Tylersville Road. For more information, call 513-777-1400.

The entire community is invited to the event.

This year will be the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

Posted in: Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Chesterwood Village

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, Chesterwood Village in West Chester will be hosting a 9/11 remembrance event at 10 a.m. The event will feature a 9/11 display, a brief ceremony, as well as free flags and pins.

The program will begin with singers from the West Chester Christian Child Care at 10 a.m., followed by a prayer by Bill Bross of St. Susanna Catholic Church at 10:10 a.m., a flag raising by the West Chester Police Department Honor Guard at 10:15 a.m., which will be followed by a patriotic music performance by a barbershop quartet called the Four Hoarsemen.

• Share other local 9/11 remembrance events with WestChesterBuzz

Chesterwood Village is located at 8073 Tylersville Road. For more information, call 513-777-1400.

The entire community is invited to the event.

This year will be the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

Posted in: News |

Tags: Tags: 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Chesterwood Village

Doug MacMillan, whose best friend Todd Beamer died heroically on United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, will share his story at a 9/11 remembrance event at the Ronald Reagan Lodge at Voice of America Park in West Chester today at 4 p.m. on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On Sept. 11, ten years ago, MacMillan was on his way to work when he turned on the radio and was “overwhelmed” by what he heard. Two planes had just crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

>>>SEPT. 11 EVENTS IN WEST CHESTER<<<

MacMillan, a resident of Cranbury, N.J., located about 50 miles south of Manhattan, got off at a nearby exit to watch television coverage of what was taking place.

“As all this was happening, it dawned on me that Todd was getting on a flight and that my wife was flying. It was just one of those surreal moments,” MacMillan said.

“Seeing what was going on and trying to grasp everything was unimaginable.”

Eventually, he did get a hold of his wife, Chivon, whose flight from Germany to Newark, N.J., had landed in Greenland. That was when he told her that Todd’s flight crashed in Pennsylvania.

“I couldn’t be there to tell her in person and I didn’t want her to see it on the news. She had just been with them (Todd and his wife, Lisa) on a flight the week before,” he said.

Todd (photo – left) and other members of United Airlines Flight 93 were featured all over the news, as they heroically attempted to regain control of their airplane after al-Qaeda terrorists took it over Sept. 11.

During the flight, Beamer spoke to a GTE supervisor for 13 minutes on the plane’s in-flight telephone, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

According to that story, Beamer told the supervisor, Lisa D. Jefferson, what had happened, what was currently going on and what he and other passengers intended to do on the plane, which was to “jump on” the hijacker wearing a bomb.

He then dropped the phone. That was when Jefferson heard him famously say, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll!”

Shortly after those words, the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa., killing all 40 passengers and crew on board. (more…)

Posted in: Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Butler County Remembrance Event Committee, Doug MacMillian, Flight 93, friends of Todd Beamer, Heroic Choices, Ronald Reagan Lodge, Todd Beamer, United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 93 memorial, United Airlines Flight 93 national memorial, veterans, Voice of America, Voice of America Park, War on Terror

There will be multiple local events of note this weekend for West Chester residents to remember the victims and the sacrifices of the heroes of Sept. 11, 2001.

This Saturday, Sept. 10, the Youth in Philanthropy Advisory Board at The Community Foundation of West Chester/Liberty will be holding their 8th annual collection for Operation Gratitude in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11. The collection will take place at the Voice of America Shopping Center at the intersection of Cox and Tylersville roads.

Donations can be dropped off from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Visit the Operation Gratitude website for ideas of items in need at www.opgratitude.com/wishlist.php.

On Sunday morning, West Chester firefighters will participate in a ceremony at the Fallen Firefighter Memorial on Monument Avenue in Hamilton.

The event will include a rolling procession of apparatus led by the Patriot Guard will escort Fairfield Township Fire Department’s memorial piece of steel from the Twin Towers to the ceremony at the Fallen Firefighter Memorial.

The procession will assemble at the Liberty Township Fire Station #112 on Yankee Rd. at 11:30 a.m. The memorial piece of steel from the World Trade Center will be on display before and after the ceremony.

Then at 4 p.m. Doug MacMillan, whose best friend Todd Beamer died heroically on United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, will share his story at a 9/11 remembrance event at the Ronald Reagan Lodge at Voice of America Park in West Chester.

>>>“FRIEND OF 9/11 HERO TO SHARE STORY IN WEST CHESTER”<<<

The event has been put together to commemorate the memory of those community heroes who have lost their lives in the ten-year “War on Terror.”

The event will feature music by the West Chester Symphony Orchestra, Posting of the Colors by the VFW, Pledge of Allegiance, a vocal performance by a talented young student from the Lakota School District, reading of the names of the fallen, taps and a rifle salute.

Prior to the event Sunday evening, St. Anne Episcopal Church is providing a community remembrance of 9/11 at Voice of America Park from noon to 4 p.m. Contact Kathy Kramer at rkmkramer@yahoo.com to lend your voice to a corps of persons reading excerpts from a collection of remembrances of lives lost in the 9/11 tragedies.

Donations for Operation Gratitude may also be dropped at the remembrance event at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Posted in: Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Butler County Remembrance Event Committee, Doug MacMillian, Flight 93, friends of Todd Beamer, Heroic Choices, Ronald Reagan Lodge, Todd Beamer, United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 93 memorial, United Airlines Flight 93 national memorial, veterans, Voice of America, Voice of America Park, War on Terror

Doug MacMillan, whose best friend Todd Beamer died heroically on United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, will share his story at a 9/11 remembrance event at the Ronald Reagan Lodge at Voice of America Park in West Chester next Sunday at 4 p.m. on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On Sept. 11, ten years ago, MacMillan was on his way to work when he turned on the radio and was “overwhelmed” by what he heard. Two planes had just crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

MacMillan, a resident of Cranbury, N.J., located about 50 miles south of Manhattan, got off at a nearby exit to watch television coverage of what was taking place.

“As all this was happening, it dawned on me that Todd was getting on a flight and that my wife was flying. It was just one of those surreal moments,” MacMillan said.

“Seeing what was going on and trying to grasp everything was unimaginable.”

Eventually, he did get a hold of his wife, Chivon, whose flight from Germany to Newark, N.J., had landed in Greenland. That was when he told her that Todd’s flight crashed in Pennsylvania.

“I couldn’t be there to tell her in person and I didn’t want her to see it on the news. She had just been with them (Todd and his wife, Lisa) on a flight the week before,” he said.

Todd (photo – left) and other members of United Airlines Flight 93 were featured all over the news, as they heroically attempted to regain control of their airplane after al-Qaeda terrorists took it over Sept. 11.

During the flight, Beamer spoke to a GTE supervisor for 13 minutes on the plane’s in-flight telephone, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

According to that story, Beamer told the supervisor, Lisa D. Jefferson, what had happened, what was currently going on and what he and other passengers intended to do on the plane, which was to “jump on” the hijacker wearing a bomb.

He then dropped the phone. That was when Jefferson heard him famously say, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll!”

Shortly after those words, the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa., killing all 40 passengers and crew on board. (more…)

Posted in: Events, News |

Tags: Tags: 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, Butler County Remembrance Event Committee, Doug MacMillian, Flight 93, friends of Todd Beamer, Heroic Choices, Ronald Reagan Lodge, Todd Beamer, United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 93 memorial, United Airlines Flight 93 national memorial, veterans, Voice of America, Voice of America Park, War on Terror