Kansas State University - Royal Purple Yearbook (Manhattan, KS)

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Planting flags along the sidewalk in front of his home at 3321 Catlin Road, 4-year.old Lance Whaley shows off his patriotic spirit. Whaley and his mother, Donna, decorated their yard with 50 flags on Sept. 14. Donna Wnaley had the flags in storage as part of their Fourth of July decor. I have been most impressed with the ' flags on front porches of nearly every house in our neighborhood, Joe Reichenberger senior in sociology, sad. (Photo by Matt Stamey) fusion defined 15

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The fourth verse of the the Star-Spangled Banner was penned on Sept. 13, 1814 by Francis Scott Key as he surveyed the damage of Fort McHenry, Md., during the War of 1812. One hundred eighty-seven years later, following terrorist attacks Sept. 11, citizens clung to the words of the national anthem and familiar colors of the flag as a second-nature instinct, Kyle Barker, student body president, said. At the prayer service (Sept. 14), with the choir singing ' God Bless America ' and everyone uniformly standing, I looked to my right to see the flag. It was a sight never to be equaled, Barker. senior in political science, said. ' ' You don ' t overlook the obvious any more. Barker said students returned the banner of freedom to its highest honor and turned to the flag to remember everything it represents. The sense of patriotism and the American flag were integral in satisfying our need to come together, Barker said. It brought us back to our roots, and I hope to God it is sustained. It is a key to healing together. Students who did not own flags sought to purchase them. Area retail shopping centers could not keep shelves stocked with patriotic symbols. If flags touched the shelves, we were probably closed, Veronica Mangiaracino, Wal-Mart assistant manager, said. If shipments arrived, they were taken from the stockers at the doors. Printing and manufacturing companies could not keep up with consumer demand. Craving anything with patriotic colors, customers relied on homemade talent to supply their desire to pageant American pride with beaded buttons, bows and crafts. By Lucas Shivers The sense of community spirit also hit campus. Displays of citizenship included a four-and-a-half- story window painting in Goodnow Hall. Planned and designed the evening before, more than 30 residents gathered Sept. 29 to paint the windows red, white and blue resembling the flag. Residents tackled their lobby windows before moving up floors to help others, said Derek Craig,, sophomore in business administration. It showed onlookers that the residents of Goodnow do support America and its cause, Craig said. ' We w ill not be threatened. The flag was a constant reminder of how lucky we are to live in America. Outfitted in a sense of pride, Steve Levin, Varney ' s assistant manager, said the loyal allegiance to university and country sparked interest in a specially designed $10 Powercat shaped American flag with the words God Bless America. N Zone Sportswear, a local screen printer, initially donated 500 T-shirts to Vamey ' s Book Store and the K-State Union Bookstore. Vamey ' s sold out within an hour after their Sept. 14 delivery. Levin said. The next 5,000 shirts, which arrived at 11 a.m., were gone by noon. Forty people waited in the rain the next morning for the next 1,000 shirts. We have been chasing them since the beginning, Levin said. When it is all said and done through the bulk of it, we predict 40,000 shirts to be sold. After the first weekend, Vamey ' s wrote a check to the American Red Cross for the total proceeds of $20,440 in the name of their customers. All profits sinc e then continued to be contributed. Levin said it has been a wonderful privilege to serve the public, both in Manhattan and the nation. With online sales and catalogue purchases, Levin said thousands of T-shirts were shipped coast to coast. Name a state and a shirt has gone there, he said. With the Powercat, it helps us identify because we ' re K-Staters. but we ' re Americans first. Beth Martin, junior in animal sciences and industry, wears a red, white and blue Powercat shirt while holding a lit candle in Aggieville during a National moment of remembrance Sept. 14. at 7p.m7Our response has been admirable, It makes us think (the flags) should be on display all the time. Kansas is real patriotic, sincewe live in the heartland and in the very smack-dab middle of our country April Dawson, senior in horticulture, said. (Photo by Mike Shepherd) PRODIGAL PATRIOTISM As the dust of tragedy settled, one symbol returned stronger than ever 14 The Star-Spangled Banner, verse four ' 0 thus be it ever when men shall stand Between their loved home and the war ' s desolation; Blest with vict ' ry and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserv ' d us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto. in God is our trust! And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O ' er the land of the free and . the home of the braves Student Life

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Awakene d experience is a mere grain of sand in II IL desert that is the grief of the families of the firefighters and World Trade Center employees. 8y Cary Conover Cary Conover, 1997 K-State alumnus captured the attack on film. A street photographer in hi spare time, Conover roamed the streets of Manh attan. He also free-lanced for various publications. During his time at K-State, Conover, a journalism and mass communications major, gained experience as a photographer for the Royal Purple and the Collegian. Conover wrote his personal experience of the tragedy the week after the attacks. I was awakened Tuesday, Sept. I1 not by the news of the plane crashing, but rather by a Federal Express man delivering a package. I buzzed him into the building and after signing for the package, went back to bed. A few minutes later, I was awakened by two sets of rushed knocks on the door. I contemplated not answering, but something seemed too sudden about the knocks. Urgent. I looked through the peephole to see my neighbor Gavin. I opened the door and asked what was going on. His morning routine had obviously been interrupted more than mine—he was wet from the shower and still had shaving cream on his face. He said a plane had crashed into the WIC. Not a stranger to being awakened to photograph what journalists call spot news: I was not unusually alarmed. I grabbed my cameras and ran up to the roof, where many of my neighbors were already watching. I live on Stanton Street, about 25 blocks northeast of the WIC. The rooftop of our five-story building provides a modest view of the downtown skyline. It does, however, offer a relatively unobstructed view of the Twin Towers. Only the north tower was damaged. There was a giant. gaping hole on its north face that spewed thick, dark gray smoke and thousands of specks of tiny white paper into the air. As shocking as it was to see, there was no terror or fear associated with what I was witnessing, only amazement and disbelief. Perhaps from my nearly four years photographing spot news for a small-town newspaper I dismissed it as an accident. The words terrorist attack were nowhere in my mind. I wondered if the north tower would be repairable. Looking back, I ' m ashamed I didn ' t first acknowledge how many people had just been killed, who were, in fact, dying before my eyes. Those people didn ' t have time to escape or defend themselves. As if witnessing a building of that magnitude with that kind of damage wasn ' t incredible enough, the south tower exploded. It took a second for us to hear what our eyes were seeing. The actual sound the crash produced was not so unique—it was like thunder or the rumble of an empty heavyweight payload truck driving over train tracks. But visually it was a slow, billowing explosion. I didn ' t see it was a plane that hit the opposite side of the south tower, as the tower itself blocked my view of the approaching plane. Hater examined my negatives from the morning and discovered the plane as a tiny dot in the background. My distance from the towers cushioned me from the sudden blast it must have seemed like from ground zero. Any sense of scale or relativity was missing. Perhaps because the spectacle it produced was so unlike anything I had witnessed before, it didn ' t register. My only instinct was to photograph what was happening. After the explosion I headed toward the WIC with my roommate. When we got as far as we could go (just over three blocks north of the WIC), the police were stopping people, telling those who were south-bound to head back north. The road was blocked off and I saw what appeared to be a giant plane part. Perhaps an engine. Totally mangled, it had gears and was round. There were lots of FBI agents. At that point I figured I needed a clearer shot of the towers so I headed east. Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge was slow because everybody, it seemed, in all of downtown Manhattan was walking across the bridge, evacuating. (It was) a total mass exodus of people. continued on page 18 Late evening, Sept 16, deep into the restricted zone but still a full block away from Ground Zero, utility personnel work around the clock to help the search and rescue efforts. As reported in Newsweek magazine, doctors awaited patients in make-shift hospitals,. but as one doctor explained, there are no patiePts to bring. As of Sept. 22, more than 90,937 tons of debris had been removed from the WIC site. (Photo by Cary Conover) 16 Student Life