Hello. My name is Mathew McKay, and I am just getting underway as a news and features writer for the Dakota Student.

We recently passed the twelfth anniversary of September 11, 2001 and while it is an event still haunting many to this day, it is also an event slowly drifting into our nation’s history.  Having already been in many of our textbooks during the past few years, the event continues to see signs of disappearing from recent memories. It may be hard to believe, but this year’s’ senior class of high school students were only in kindergarten at the time.

For many of those seniors, including those interviewed at a high school in Wyoming by the Cheyenne Channel Five news team, it is clear that the biggest impact of the event was expressions and reactions of their parents and kindergarten teachers.

Senior Lauren Minder of Cheyenne East High School spoke of the event. “My teacher, she was obviously trying to explain it to six-year-olds. She said there are moms and dads that are not going to come home tonight, and that stuck with me all these years.”

After hearing the seniors talk about the event this past week, I finally found an answer to a long time question. Why the songs?  Growing up, I had always loved the song “ Where were you when the world stopped turning?” by Alan Jackson, because for me, I did remember exactly where I was at school. On the other hand, the song “Have you forgotten?“ by Darryl Worley never seemed to make sense to me, as I could not see how anyone would not remember. As time moves on; however, it becomes obvious that it is being put on the back seat, as families move on. It’s maybe not on purpose, but because of the more recent events.

What’s almost more important at this point is the movie theater shooting in Denver, Colorado that took place two years ago and the more recent elementary school shooting in New Town, Connecticut. Those will be the events the future students will remember. Each of these events shows us that time continues, no matter how old you are and these events will soon also become blurry or even forgotten, if not kept in remembrance as we do with September 11.