Combined JROTC to take over annual 9/ 11 memorial project along Route 228

The combined Pine- Richland/ Mars Area Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps will continue the tradition of the annual Sept. 11, 2001, memorial in front of Mars Area High School.

For the past nine years, a flag for each person killed during the terrorist attack has been placed in front of the school on Route 228 in Adams, Butler County, before Sept. 11. The flags, more than 3,000, remain up for two or three days.

“The community has embraced this annual memorial,” Mars Area school board President J. Dayle Ferguson said during Tuesday’s meeting.

The project was started in 2010 by Brian Thomas and was continued by his younger brothers after he graduated. When the youngest Thomas graduated in 2015, the project was picked up by Mrs. Ferguson’s three sons. The youngest Ferguson graduated in June.

“This should be a studentled process,” Mrs. Ferguson said, adding that her family will donate the flags and materials to the JROTC.

“We have just a handful of students, maybe half of senior class, that were even alive when it happened,” the board president said.

Mars Area approved allowing students to join PineRichland’s JROTC in January 2018, and the joint program officially began with the 2018- 19 school year.

Pine- Richland officials reached across the Allegheny County line when enrollment in their program dwindled to less than half of what they needed.

In other business, the board approved applying to the state Department of Education for “flexible instruction days,” where students can work online at home on days when school would normally be canceled for weather or other problems.

Many area school districts are passing similar resolutions this month.

The board also approved purchasing metal bands and a tarp for the “salt dome” from Steel Master USA for $ 10,495. The bands and tarp had deteriorated, allowing rain into the facility, Superintendent Wes Shipley said.