Community Corner
UPDATE: Memorial Park Balloon Release Pays Tribute to 9/11 Victims
95.5's Mojo in the Morning show teams with Royal Oak to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
With a bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace" and a dozen Royal Oak firefighters and police officers lined up facing the American flag, there was hardly a dry eye at this morning as nearly 3,000 red, white and blue balloons were released to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
Radio station 95.5's Mojo in the Morning show and Time Team Detroit teamed up with city's Parks & Recreation department and for the special tribute to the men and women who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and hijacked plane crash in Pennsylvania.
Royal Oak Mayor Jim Ellison and state Rep. Jim Townsend joined the small crowd of people, including several mothers with small children, to watch the balloon release and reflect on the day.
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Channel 955 on-air personality Spike broadcast live with Mojo in the Morning from the park at 13 Mile and Woodward, while volunteers prepared the balloons. “It was a great morning,” Spike said. “The team really worked together to make it happen. We released the balloons in memory of every person that was lost 10 years ago.”
Heather Curtis had wanted to do something to mark the 9/11 anniversary so when she heard about Friday’s event she signed up to help. “I just knew I had to be here,” she said.
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“The ceremony was the least we could do to honor those that lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Stacy Latona of Clear Channel, which owns 95.5. Latona arrived at Memorial Park at 5:30 a.m. to help. Clear Channel recently lost two of its employees, she said. “We are experiencing our own suffering and this was a wonderful way to honor them and those who lost so many of their co-workers and families on Sept. 11,” Latona said.
Retired police officer Patrick Rourke of the Metro Detroit Police and Fire Pipes and Drums, an organization that supports fallen police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty, played “Amazing Grace” as a cloud of balloons was released in front of the United States flag into a somber gray sky.
Members of the crowd – families, individuals, police and fire officials, lawmakers, a U.S. Army sergeant – lifted their eyes and many shed tears as they watched balloons that gracefully float off into the wind.
