[09/08/02]The one-year anniversary of suicide-crash airline hijackings that killed thousands of U.S. civilians is to be remembered in Vicksburg with a communitywide ceremony Wednesday.

The hour-long ceremony to honor the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, airline-flight takeovers and the American military personnel who have died in the battle against terrorism, is scheduled for 9:15 a.m. at Vicksburg Memorial Stadium, 3701 Drummond St.

In case of rain, the event will be canceled.

Tentative plans for the ceremony were for speakers to include U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commanders Col. Frederick L. Clapp Jr. of the Vicksburg District and Brig. Gen. Edwin J. Arnold Jr. of the Mississippi Valley Division and Vicksburg Mayor Laurence Leyens.

Students from Alcorn State University will perform the national anthem and a poetry reading.

Members of the Vicksburg Fire and Police departments, the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Army soldiers and veterans of the American Legion’s Tyner Ford Post No. 213 will carry a ceremonial flag that flew at the Pentagon. The procession will be on the stadium track and onto the football field while bagpipes play “Amazing Grace.” Once the flag is in position, audience members will be asked to observe a moment of silence while taps is played.

Other Sept. 11 commemoration events were being scheduled for Wednesday for schools across Vicksburg and Warren County.

For example, all Navy Junior ROTC Warren Central High School cadets were to assemble at the school’s flagpole at the exact time of the initial aircraft’s crash into a World Trade Center tower. Cadets were to fall in at attention at 7:40 a.m., with taps being played while the flag is raised at 7:45 a.m., with a one-minute moment of silence to follow.

And Sherman Avenue Elementary School will present a patriotic program at 9 a.m. with special guests from the community. On Thursday, an open house was to be held there at 6:30 p.m. with the school’s third-graders presenting patriotic music.

At River Region Medical Center, Chaplain Sam Dunaway will conduct a memorial service beginning at 9 a.m. in Conference Rooms C and D, with Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace scheduled as the guest speaker.

In another commemoration activity, shoulder patches of the Vicksburg Fire and Police departments are part of a “Patches of Courage” quilt that is to be presented to the New York City Fire Department on Wednesday, a press release from the Angwin (Calif.) Fire Department said. Bearing the patches of more than 200 fire and other first-responder emergency units from all 50 states and several foreign countries, the 92-inch-square quilt is the work of Jennifer Schooley of Angwin, whose husband is a captain in its volunteer fire department.