The Flight 93 Memorial: “Let’s roll”

I was privileged to attend the kickoff for the Flight 93 Memorial Campaign: “93 cents for Flight 93,” on September 10 at the Shanksville-Stonycreek School in Shanksville, PA. I was invited by MACtac, whose national accounts manager, John Antognoli, envisioned the wrapping of a 53-ft. Daimler Freightliner tractor-trailer with a campaign message. MACtac also donated the vinyl for the wrap. Here’s a brief chronological synopsis of the story and the myriad players.

First, Sharon Deitrick runs The Hope Always Lives On (HALO) Foundation in Akron. OH. She was already a member of the Flight 93 National Campaign (under the direction of the National Parks Foundation), and she subsequently founded the 93 Cents for Flight 93 program with a soft launch in March 2008.

In Sharon’s “real” life, she owns Deitrick & Associates (D&A) Interior Design. She knows MACtac because it’s one of her clients. She called Antognoli to see if he would donate the material for some bumper stickers that would promote 93 Cents. John suggested a much bigger “sticker.”

MACtac also knows Road Scholar Transport, a Scranton, PA trucking company that handles some of MACtac’s trucking needs. John also knows that Road Scholar owner/founder Jim Barrett has instituted a 10,000,000 Mile Hope & Awareness Campaign, which uses its normal trucks as rolling billboards to raise awareness and funding for various causes. Jim began with the American Breast Cancer Foundation approximately 18 months ago and has subsequently added eight others.

So the players were in place for wrapping a Road Scholar semi. Next, a design. A photo of an eagle came from Niebrugge Images, a Seward, AK stock photography agency run by photographer Ron Niebrugge. But the eagle head in the photo didn’t work for the cab, so an original design was needed. Enter Kent State University student Martin Alvord and Ann Akins, an art director for Sharon’s D&A company.

Then someone had to print and install it. Enter Paul Graefen, the VP of sales for Harbor Graphics, a Benton Harbor, MI, division of Vomela that specializes in fleet graphics.

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The finished product debuted at the Shanksville school that houses 418 students for all 13 grades. The six circles on the truck show contributing schoolchildren. There’s the commemorative quilt with 32 panels (one for each of the 5th and 6th grade homerooms at Lakeview Intermediate school in Stow, OH (home of MACtac). There’s the check for $1835.93 from kids at a Wooster, OH school where each classroom was challenged to walk a collective 93 miles for the cause (1,766 miles thus far). Students from Ball State University are shown at the temporary Flight 93 Memorial, where anyone can leave anything they want. Kids from Chardon, OH are shown waving flags. They’ve had a field trip to the site every year.

The next day, 9/11, we heard speeches from Colin Powell, Gen. Tommy Franks, Secretary Tom Ridge, PA Governor Edward Rendell and PA Senator Robert Casey, near the crash site. For whatever reason, the semi couldn’t be there, but it should have been. Groundbreaking for the Memorial will be in November with a promised completion for the 10th anniversary, on 9/11/2011.

My editorial for Signs of the Times’ November issue will address this topic some more. Also, Signs’ January issue will include photos and explanations of Harbor Graphics’ printing and installation of the graphics in the Strictly Commercial column.