By Joe Camacho
“It was tragic,” Laura Pantano, assistant vice president for student engagement and success, says as she remembers the events of 9/11.
“It should always be something that we remember and never forget,” Pantano adds.
Pantano, age 37, recalls the events with clarity, even though a decade has passed.
She is one of several community members on the A&M campus asked to share her recollections on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
At the time of the 9/11 events, Pantano says she was preparing to go to work at Angelo State University.
“My husband was watching Fox News. That was his morning thing,” Pantano remembers.
Shortly thereafter, Pantano’s husband caught the news of the first tower being hit.
Pantano recalls the moment her husband said, “Oh my god, a second plane just came in.”
As the news of the second tower being hit was released, Pantano and her husband knew the crashes were not just an accident.
“By the time I got to work, the first tower had already fallen. People were just in shock,” Pantano says.
People at work were consumed and focused on the dreadful events that were unfolding on national television. The workday stopped. All TVs on Angelo State’s campus were broadcasting the news that unfolded.
News of the attack on the Pentagon and a downed airliner in Pennsylvania only strengthened the assumptions of Angelo State employees and students of a deliberate attack.
Laura Pantano is a family member of a retired Air Force captain and has another Air Force captain in her family who was recently deployed to Afghanistan. She also shared with The Mesquite that a grade school friend’s sister was killed in a plane crash that was part of the attacks.
Pantano commemorates Sept. 11 by never forgetting about the events and always honoring the fallen, even in between 9/11 anniversaries.
