Tulsa Tech Students Build 18th Annual Tribute To Victims Of 9/11

This weekend people from all over will honor the lives lost 20 years ago on 9/11.

Some Tulsa Tech masonry students built a tribute wall to honor the 9/11 anniversary in their own way.

"I definitely cried a lot with this project," said Synestra Berger.

Berger is 17 years old and has learned about the 9/11 terrorist attacks through history books and school. This year for the 20th anniversary she's combining that history with her masonry skills.

"I cut my first brick for this pentagon and I laid my first one for that little triangle there," said Berger.

The theme for their project this year is milestones. While working on the project, Synestra experienced her own milestone, she lost her brother. Her instructor let her honor him in the project with a flag.

"That flag there I put that there. That's kind of special," said Berger.

Chauncey Kila is said the annual project started in 2002. At that time, the masonry program was on the verge of shutting down so he asked his students to build a flag out of bricks. They finished the project around the first anniversary of the attacks.

“This co-worker came by and took their picture by it and she had them salute. I didn’t know what that meant until she posted it district-wide, the picture, and said salute to the heroes of 9/11. Then we got a stack of emails back you know saying good job masonry students. This gave me goosebumps and it sort of put masonry back on the map," said Kila.

Every student is involved in the project and Berger said she's grateful they're making an effort to remember that fateful day. "We lost a really big part of our country that day and I'm a pretty patriotic person and so that just kind of hurt my heart," said Berger.

Kila says the tribute will stay up until about February and then they'll take it down and start thinking about what they're going to do next year.