Lessons of 9/11 impact local teacher and his students
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Bill Guerrette knows exactly where he was Sept. 11, 2001.
Bill Guerrette was in a classroom with impressionable fifth-graders trying to explain why hijackers intentionally crashed two airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and another into the Pentagon.
“I had a television with cable in my classroom and our principal, Tom Folsom, had mentioned a little after 9 a.m. that a plane had hit a building in New York City,” said Guerrette, who was teaching at Zippel Elementary School at the time. “I didn’t think too much of it; I thought it was just a small biplane or something. Around 10 a.m. we had our normal morning snack break, so I flipped the TV on just after the second plane had hit.
“We ended up watching both towers fall. Because everything was unfolding, nobody had any answers. The big question the kids kept asking was, ‘Why? Why would somebody do that?’” he said. “It was really difficult because they didn’t understand what was going on and I didn’t know how to explain it to them.”
Photo courtesy of Bill Guerrette
DUE TO THE EVENTS of Sept. 11, 2001, teacher Bill Guerrette’s fifth-grade trip to Boston was canceled by SAD 1 administrators as they didn’t feel comfortable with students being in a big city following the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. Instead Guerrette’s fifth-graders at Zippel Elementary School went on an overnight trip to Portland. In this photo, taken after dinner at House Island, located in Portland Harbor, students, from left: Mimi Smith, Gage Dickinson, Sara Porter, Martha Means and Katrina Whittier prepare to go explore Fort Scammel, which was built in 1808. (Story, see page 5A.)
To make matters worse, Guerrette realized that his brother, Brian, who lives in Oakland, was flying that day.
“Brian had a business trip to California so he flew from Portland to Boston. He ended up being on the same plane as Mohamed Atta who was one of the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks,” said Guerrette. “I tried to get on the Internet and look for information about Brian’s flight, but by that point, the Internet was just jammed.”
Guerrette went home at noontime and called his sister-in-law, Tessa. She didn’t have her husband’s full itinerary and ended up calling his secretary, who also didn’t know Brian’s exact whereabouts.
“A little while later we learned that Brian was all right,” said Guerrette. “Two of the three airplanes from Boston were hijacked. Fortunately Brian was on the other plane.”
Brian ended up being interviewed by the FBI and was even featured on “Dateline.”
“He remembers seeing Mohamed but didn’t think anything of it,” Guerrette said. “He was dressed casually and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but it ended up turning into something that we all will remember.”
The events of Sept. 11 led SAD 1 administrators to cancel Guerrette’s fifth-grade trip to Boston that year.
“They didn’t feel comfortable with kids being in a big city because of what had happened with 9/11,” said Guerrette. “That was either going to be the third or fourth year we had gone on the trip.
“When we first started, the trip was for three nights and we would be in Boston, go to Plymouth, Mass. and stay with our pen pals that we had at an elementary school that we had corresponded with all year,” he said. “When 9/11 happened, two things occurred. One, we had to stay within the state that year, and secondly, the trip was going to be for just one night instead of three. I don’t know how much shortening the trip was related to 9/11. The theory was that trips in elementary school should be a little bit less than trips in the middle school, and trips in the middle school should be a little bit less than trips in high school as far as staying overnight. It was an administrative decision.”
The Boston trip was scheduled for May 2002 and the students had already begun fundraising.
“We had already had our parent meeting and gotten the ball rolling when we found out that the trip had been cancelled,” said Guerrette. “The first reaction was being disappointed, but we all realized that the decision was a good one. Some parents still wanted to go to Boston, but others were relieved. We had both ends of the spectrum. In the end, everybody agreed that it was the right decision to make.”
The students instead went to Portland. Along the way they visited the A.E. Howell Wildlife Conservation Center in North Amity, Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor, Old Fort Western in Augusta, Old Orchard Beach, the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, and Fort Scammel and House Island in Portland.
Though not afraid to fly, it was only recently that Guerrette has flown since the terrorist attacks.
“The way we fly is certainly different than it used to be. Security measures are in place and while it becomes an issue of safety versus civil liberties, I think it’s all for the best.”
Guerrette said if he learned anything from 9/11 it’s not to take things for granted.
“Events like that make you appreciate the little things like saying ‘I love you’ before you leave home,” he said. “For some people, that was the last thing they said to their family before leaving for work. That really put things into perspective for me.
“I also learned not to be naïve. I think people thought, ‘Something like that can’t happen here,’ but it did,” he said. “You never know what can happen, or where, so it’s best to remember that as you go about your day-to-day lives. Some people remember where they were when certain things happened. Sept. 11 is one of those dates that I’ll always remember and know where I was.”
