09/15/2026
Salisbury gathers for Lions Club 9/11 remembrance ceremony
By Caitlin Dee
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SALISBURY — Despite gloomy weather Sunday, townspeople showed up in droves for the Salisbury Lions Club’s 9/11 remembrance ceremony.
The ceremony at the Salisbury Public Library comes 25 years after four commercial planes were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, with two planes flying into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one crashing in rural Pennsylvania after passengers managed to stop the terrorists on board.
The tragedy resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, with the count still growing to this day as first responders succumb to 9/11-related illnesses.
While Sunday’s ceremony, which was organized by Lions Club members A.J. Pappas and Kate Pappas, had to be moved indoors, it still drew a large crowd that filled the library’s community room and spilled into the hallway.
The ceremony itself consisted of everything from speeches made by Salisbury Fire Chief Scott Carrigan, state Rep. Dawne Shand and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, to the Lions Clubs’ younger members, the Leos and Cubs, singing “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. It was emceed by local selectman and Lions Club member Michael Colburn, Colburn said he was thrilled to oversee the event and glad members of the club trusted him to do so.
“I’m honored that my fellow Lions Club members look at me in that capacity, that I can lead them on such an important event,” he said.
The ceremony also included wreaths being laid on sections of the Salisbury Town Common which is currently adorned with nearly 3,000 American flags, one for every victim of 9/11, thanks to the Lions Club.
“They laid wreaths at each of the sites on our common. We set up sections. So, there’s a section for Flight 11, a section for first responders, and a section for the tower victims. So, they laid wreaths in front of each section throughout the whole ceremony, which is very moving,” Beal said.
This year, there was also a new addition to the Town Common in the form of a 9/11 memorial that was unveiled ahead of the ceremony. The memorial’s stone base is shaped like the Pentagon, with two pillars shaped like the Twin Towers coming out of the stone, and the names of the fallen etched on their sides.
Mike Roberge, a Lions Club member and one of the people behind the memorial, said he felt a sense of accomplishment when the memorial was unveiled, and also said he was happy with the ceremony as a whole.
“It was a great feeling, a great turnout, probably one of our largest turnouts even though it was inside. Full participation from our first responders, the Salisbury Police and Salisbury Fire Department, our selectmen and women, and a lot of town residents and people from other communities, from Newburyport,” he said.
Among the first responders in attendance was Salisbury Fire Department Deputy Chief Andrew Murphy who praised the Lions Club for their work on the ceremony, and said the department was grateful for the town’s support on an emotional day.
“It was great,” he said of the ceremony. “But we’re very lucky that the town supports the fire department every day. But, on 9/11, they came out and they really supported us. 9/11 was a tragic event in which we lost many firefighters and police officers. But, it was a really great event, a moving tribute,”.
Now, with the ceremony in the rearview mirror, Roberge said while it was emotional, it is important to commemorate 9/11 year after year and never forget.
“It’s a sad thing. But what are we as humans if we can’t just take a few minutes out of our day one day a year and just sit and reflect and honor the memory of those innocent lives, ordinary people going to work, not knowing they weren’t going to come home that day,” he said.
