PEORIA, Ill. – A new exhibit at the Peoria Riverfront Museum next year will coincide with the anniversary of one of the worst attacks ever on American soil.
The museum will partner with the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York for the exhibition “We Remember: Stories from the National September 11th Memorial and Museum.” The exhibit will debut on the 25th anniversary of the attacks; September 11th, 2026.
The announcement was made during a ceremony to mark the anniversary at the museum on Thursday morning.
The exhibit will feature artifacts that include more than 30 objects recovered from Ground Zero, as well as the damaged turn-out fear of a first responder injured in the collapse of the South Tower.
There will be a local aspect to the exhibit, as the story of Charles “Chip” Chan will be part of it. Chan was a graduate of Richwoods High School and the University of Illinois, and the only Peorian who died in the attacks. Chan was on the 105th floor of the North Tower working for financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald when the attacks occurred. The exhibit will feature a quilt donated by his family that was made by his Richwoods’ classmates.
Museum President and CEO John Morris says it’s an honor for the museum to host the exhibit.
“That is a great responsibility our curators have taken on to bring tremendous artifacts that tell the stories of real lives,” Morris said.
A special advisor to the exhibit will be Andrew Card, former White House Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush. Card is part of one of the most well-known photos from the morning of September 11th, 2001. He is the one who informed President Bush of the attacks at a grade school in Sarasota, FL, while the president was reading to school children.
“I had a job to do, which was to help the President make the right decisions, which were going to be very difficult decisions, and that those decisions would be understood by those who would have to carry out the obligations,” Card said.
Card recalled the moment following Thursday morning’s ceremony. He says the first information received was that a small twin plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, which developed into the commercial jet airliner planes that would actually attack the buildings.
Card says his focus was delivering the burden of the message and the moment to President Bush, saying the president knew the nation was under attack at that moment. He also commended Bush for not showing fear to the children he was reading to that morning.
Card says he did not have a concept at the time of how much the world would change when he delivered the message, but noted the unique situation of giving the message in an elementary classroom.
For the exhibit that he’s helping with, Card says it will deliver on a promise of never forgetting what happened on September 11th for generations to come.
“There are people who are young and not around 24 years ago that they don’t know about it. But anybody who took that promise to never forget, won’t forget it, and we’re making sure they can’t forget it,” Card said.
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