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Mt. Pleasant High School Band honors 9/11 with music
Tradition of playing the national anthem in remembrance of 9/11 continues more than two decades later
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
MT. PLEASANT — The Mt. Pleasant Community High School marching band stood shoulder to shoulder around the flagpole the morning of Thursday, Sept. 11, horns and drums poised, waiting for the familiar first notes of the national anthem. As the patriotic song floated through the air, students carried on a promise, “Never Forget.”
Across the United States, schools have grappled with how to teach a generation born after 2001 about a day that reshaped the nation. According to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, educators often mark the anniversary with moments of silence, history lessons, and visits to memorials. In Mt. Pleasant, the tradition remains rooted in sound.
The tradition at MPCHS began under the direction of Jim DePriest. Even after his retirement, MPCSD directors have gathered the band in the same way.
This fall, the responsibility fell to current director Micah Peck, alongside assistant marching band director Adam Creager and color guard instructor Whitney Rogers, who each spoke to students before leading them to the flagpole.
Peck opened by reminding students that for their generation, 9/11 is not a lived memory but inherited history.
“On 9/11 when it happened, we all have our individual stories of when it happened. Your parents know what they were doing when 9/11 happened,” he said. “You guys were born when the war in Afghanistan was going on, which was a direct correlation to what happened on 9/11.”
He used the anthem as a bridge between centuries, pointing out that the song, written during the War of 1812, has outlasted fads and eras.
“That one has stood strong through my entire life, my parents’ entire life, my grandparents’ entire life, my great-grandparents’ entire life,” Peck told the students.
For Peck, the memories of that morning are etched in the silence of high school hallways.
“We practiced at a field six blocks away from our high school,” he said. “This is in 2001 we didn't have any cellphones like we do today. We didn’t know anything happened until we got back to school, close to nine o’clock in the morning. We walked in, and I thought nobody was there. We go in the rooms, and you see all these people around what’s called Channel One.”
Creager, now the middle school band director, carried students into another perspective. As a college student at the time, he was far from home and his parents.
“You have this incredibly frightening moment, and you have no idea what’s going on. You have no idea what is coming next,” he said. “And not being near somebody you love, that’s difficult.”
Years later, the meaning of 9/11 deepened when Creager visited New York City with students on a music trip. At the 9/11 Memorial, he found himself overwhelmed.
“It hit me, 12 years after the fact,” he said. “We were running through a rainstorm to get to One World Trade Center … and here are these giant square holes with fountains in the ground. I just stopped. I cried, and it reminded me of the day of the event.”
Rogers followed with a memory that brought the story even closer to home. As she addressed the band students, Rogers asked all the juniors to raise their hands.
“I was you, I was a junior in high school,” she said. “ I was on this field that day, and we were rehearsing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ Mr. D had us playing it over and over and I was on guard so I stood there as we played it and played it.”
She described then watching the art teacher run out of the school to tell DePriest about the terrorist attack. DePriest then informed his young students.
“At first it was like, no, no. Things like that don’t happen,” Rogers said. But as the day unfolded, reality sank in.
She remembered the sky, perfectly clear yet unsettlingly empty of planes.
“There was not a single one of those contrails in the sky until that afternoon, and it was Air Force One that flew over Mt. Pleasant on its way to take President Bush to Omaha for safety,” Rogers recalled.
Rogers talked with the students about a world they never knew before 9/11 where people could walk their loved ones all the way to their plane gates. Despite the fear, confusion, and changes she saw following the attack, Rogers shared that she witnessed something beautiful, as well.
“What I’m so proud of are the things that happened in the following days — the sense of patriotism, the sense of pride for our country and the way our country came together,” she said. “That’s what we need to remember on these days going forward. We are a country. We are together. We are in this together. There was something special that happened in our nation after that. We need to continue that legacy and continue that on.”
As the speeches ended, students walked to the flagpole. As they raised their instruments in a circle around the flag, these students joined generations of Panther Marching Band members carrying on a tradition born out of tragedy, but sustained through remembrance, reflection, and music.
The band’s anthem carried across the schoolyard, the notes rising into the late-summer sky. For Peck, Creager, Rogers, and every student listening, the music tied together past and present — a reminder that while the world has changed since 2001, the call to remember has not.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Kruse@southeastiowaunion.com
