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Ohio University Community Pays Respect To September 11th


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Eleven years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, students at Ohio University continue to pay respect to those who lost their lives.

OU College Republicans have displayed a memorial called the Never Forget Project on the Athens campus College Green Tuesday.

The group has partnered with the Young Americans Foundation since 2003 for the event.

Ryan Dilworth, Ed Ganger, Josh Johnson, and Lisa Renslow were among the group that helped set up the miniature American flags.

The group set up the flags Monday evening and 10 of them remained as guards throughout the night.

Ganger said the hardest part of the overnight job was keeping the candles lit around the flags.

Dilworth lived in Connecticut in 2001 and remembers the effect that it had on his community.

He knew people who were in the World Trade Center building the morning of the attacks.

Most undergraduate students at OU were in elementary school at the time, but it is the one day they say they will always remember from their childhood.

Ganger said he wants to keep the project going because 9/11 should be somber and respected, not trivialized and "made into a barbeque."

Other colleges in the region are also memorializing September 11.

Washington State Community College's AmeriCorps College Guides will hold a service at 10 a.m.

Students are also collecting goods for soldier care packages until Sept. 14.

Hocking College will also hold a memorial vigil at 6 p.m. at the the amphitheater outside of Light Hall.