The clang of a metal cord against a flag pole pierced the silence Wednesday morning as hundreds of students gathered outside of Wagner High School to commemorate the lives lost 23 years ago when terrorists attacked the United States on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Scores of students, all born several years after that momentous day, looked on as school leaders shared reflections on the importance of remembering those who lost their lives, including Karen J. Wagner, a 1979 graduate of Judson High School who was among the 125 to die when a plane struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., almost an hour after the first plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City.
A few years later, the district honored her legacy by naming its second high school after her.
“This solemn day … gave us an American hero who will live on forever,” said Blas Arce, the school principal. “Wagner High School and the community have become her legacy. Each student, teacher, leader and staff member who enters these doors has a purpose far greater than themselves.’
“Every day, each of us strive to live in the spirit of Lieutenant Colonel Karen Wagner,” he added.
Milton “Rob” Fields, the superintendent of Judson ISD, who served as the school’s principal for years, reflected on his time attending school with Wagner, who graduated a few years before him and stood out in every facet of her high school career.
“She was the cadet board commander, she played varsity basketball, varsity track,” he said. “She was a beast.”
That excellence continued into her college and professional military career, where she rose to the position of medical personnel officer in the Office of the Surgeon General and Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel — a promotion she received a month before the terrorist attack.
Fields said Wagner’s excellence stood out, with the entire school community looking up to her.
“This was a predominantly white community back then,” he said. “To have an African American young lady be all of that for Judson ISD at that time … was remarkable. We used to look at her like a unicorn.”
After the ceremony, Fields reflected on that morning when he watched on a TV in the lobby of a hospital he was working at as the reality of the U.S. being under attack set in.
He said that creating a space to encourage students to remember the gravity of that day and what it meant for the country is essential.
As members of the school’s JROTC ceremonially placed a wreath at the school’s entrance, one of the school’s band members, Julian Cano, played Taps on the trumpet, a traditional bugle call to memorialize fallen soldiers.
Cano, who was born in 2006, said he was honored to be trusted with such a responsibility.
“It means a lot to me,” he said. “Even though it happened way before me, it is still a major event for the world.”
In Washington D.C., at the site of the attack on the Pentagon, Wagner’s name was read off along with the others who died, as a bell tolled.
In closing, students in the choir sang the fight song written in honor of Karen Wagner by Ketih Witt, who was the band director at the school and now serves as the district’s director of fine arts:
Let us honor, let us dedicate our hearts and minds to thee.
By your memory, make us strong and wise.
Wagner, Oh Wagner, our true example be.
We lift our voices, together we are one.
You lived to make us free.
Give us strength, give us glory.
Be faithful to our call.
Wagner, Oh Wagner, live through us all.
