Those of us who live between the coasts (aka flyover country) are used to the MSM largely ignoring what happens here, even if it has probable national interest. Not to take anything away from the reverence due the World Trade Center site, progress on the Flight 93 National Memorial deserves attention, too, but is getting it mainly from Pennsylvania media.
The winning design of the permanent memorial will be unveiled in Washington, D.C., (on Sept. 7) instead of in Shanksville, Somerset County, as originally planned, specifically to "bring the memorial into the national spotlight," reports the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. Last week, retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks was enlisted as honorary chairman of the fundraising committee, which needs to raise $30 million as the memorial heads for the construction phase. That kind of money, obviously, can't be raised locally in a rural county heretofore known mainly for its dairy and maple products.
Already, more than 130,000 people a year travel along a dirt road to visit the temporary memorial at the crash site in Stonycreek Township, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Those visitors are assisted by some 40 local volunteers, who feel the strain in this sparsely populated area. "We're really not prepared," the P-G quotes Donna Glessner, vice chairwoman of the Flight 93 Advisory Commission and coordinator of the Flight 93 ambassadors program at the memorial site. The nearby Somerset Historical Center, originally dedicated to preserving the area's 18th-century pioneer history and 19th-century farming heritage, is collecting and storing the mementos left by visitors, for placement at the permanent memorial.
You can see the five finalists of the design competition even if you don't want to make the trek to Somerset. Three-D models of those finalists will be on exhibit starting Friday, July 1, online (no URL yet) and in real space through Sept. 25 at a shopping mall just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Somerset exit.
The Shanksville-Stonycreek folks are pleased with the plan to move the unveiling to Washington, but will still proceed with their original plans for a fourth anniversary ceremony. Says Glessner, "Sept. 11 is always going to happen in Shanksville."
(A personal note: I have visited and written about Somerset County many times, both as a tourist destination and for the innovation and initiative of the cash-strapped Shanksville-Stonycreek School District. It's a lovely area of rolling farmland and wooded mountains along the Eastern Continental Divide, and home to our favorite bike trail. I have not visited the Flight 93 site.)