Legion Riders and members of the Patriot Guard from Great Bend and surrounding area will join fellow bikers from across the state at a once-in-a-lifetime celebration  – the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the official Kansas 9/11 Memorial in Anthony.
According to Larry Buczinski, a Vietnam veteran and American Legion member who is one of the riders, the somber ceremony will be timed in the order of events on that fateful day. Something is planned for the time a plane struck the first World Trade Center tower, the time the second plane hit, the time the Pentagon was struck and the time passengers forced the fourth plane to crash into a field in Pennsylvania instead of its intended target.
“This will be quite and experience,” the Ellinwood man said. He and his comrades are looking forward to being a part of the event.
With flags waving from their motorcycles, they will form a line of red, white and blue to add to the observance.
The Anthony monument became Kansas’ official memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, after a bill was signed into law in March 2006 by then Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
“The people of Anthony came together to create this memorial,” Sebelius said. “It’s a great example of the spirit of community that brought us together after the 9/11 attacks, and it’s appropriate we honor that spirit by designating this as Kansas’ official 9/11 memorial.”
The Anthony 9/11 Commission was organized to fund the memorial through private donations. The memorial was designed to include steel from the World Trade Center, limestone from the Pentagon and soil from the United Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania. Local residents have also formed bonds with victims of the attacks and victims’ families.
The memorial, which was dedicated on Sept. 11, 2004, cost about $80,000, all of which came from donations.
The Anthony 9/11 Memorial is in Memorial Park on the west edge of Anthony, just east of the intersection of Highway 2 and Main Street.  It is in the southeast corner of the park.
More than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.