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20 Years Later: Mid-Ohio Valley residents recall events of Sept. 11, 2001

By Evan Bevins 9 min read

PARKERSBURG -- For nearly two decades, a piece of a steel beam from the World Trade Center has served as a private monument in the home of Liza and Richard Adams.

It's a monument to Liza's daughter, 1992 Parkersburg High School graduate Mary Lou Hague, who was working as a research analyst for Keefe, Bruyette and Woods Inc. in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center when it was struck by a hijacked commercial airliner on Sept. 11, 2001.

The beam, which had a cross cut into it, was a gift to the family from a friend, the CEO of a company that had offices in the same building. For a while, Liza Adams wasn't sure what to do with the artifact.

But as the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approached, she decided to donate it for a monument, dedicated not just to the memory of her daughter, but to all those who lost their lives on that day and in the wars that followed.

"I want this memorial … to be dedicated to the bravery and sacrifice and courage that all those people had," Liza Adams said this week. "Sept. 11 was just one day, but yet it is a day that belongs to all of us."

Set to be unveiled today, the monument sits at One Government Square between the Parkersburg Municipal Building and Wood County Courthouse. It consists of the steel beam piece, lacquered and prepared by Goff Brothers in Washington, W.Va., and set in a piece of black granite Adams selected with the help of Parkersburg's Kirby Monument Co., who installed it.

Adams said it is important for people to remember 9/11.

"I don't want anybody to take for granted our freedom," she said.

While the 20th anniversary may seem a significant milestone, for Adams, "it's just another year."

"Time helps," she said. "The hole in your heart is always there, but you learn how to handle it better."

***

Now the manager of the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport, Glen Kelly was an active duty member of the Army National Guard on Sept. 11, 2001. He'd taken the day off and was at the bank with his wife, making preparations to retire.

Then he saw footage of the World Trade Center on a small TV in the lobby.

"I saw the second plane hit the second tower, and I told my wife, 'I've got to go,'" Kelly said. "That's what I trained to do my whole life was to protect the country. And our country was just attacked. Certainly wasn't the time to retire."

In 2003, Kelly was among the Green Berets who infiltrated northern Iraq as part of Task Force Viking.

"We were actually in before the war officially began," he said.

Kelly was deployed to Iraq twice, spending time in Africa in between, where "we stopped three attacks on the homeland." Later, he would go to Europe to train NATO forces preparing to enter Afghanistan.

After he retired, Kelly returned to Iraq twice more as a contractor for the government's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

"It was a big piece of my life, and I really thought I'd done a lot of good in trying to protect the nation," Kelly said.

With the 20th anniversary looming, Kelly said he's disappointed with the way U.S. forces left Afghanistan, calling it "the greatest foreign policy disaster the U.S. has ever made."

"We surely have emboldened all of our enemies," he said. "Sadly, the way we have left, I think, has made us much more vulnerable here at home."

***

Jimmy Colombo was the mayor of Parkersburg. At the city building, "anything that could be turned on was focused on that event."

Colombo's daughter and her husband, Kristin and Jason Minnite, were due to fly out of New York that day. For a while, he didn't know where they were. Then it became a question of how they would get out of the city, with tunnels being closed off and rental cars unavailable.

"A lot of prayers said that day," Colombo said.

He later learned his daughter and son-in-law had been sitting in a plane on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport when the pilot announced there was something wrong at the Twin Towers. They could see clouds of smoke rolling toward the airport.

Colombo, now a Wood County commissioner, recalled feelings of disbelief and the fear of not knowing what was happening.

"Then you follow it up with stories about heroes," he said. "We view the terrible part that's there, but on the other hand, it could have been so much worse if the people hadn't responded."

***

Before he was elected Wood County Sheriff in 2008 and joined Gov. Jim Justice's cabinet in 2017, the 9/11 attacks wound up taking current West Virginia Secretary of Homeland Security Jeff Sandy to the nation's capital and across the world.

Sandy was a criminal investigator for the U.S. Treasury Department, on his way to an assignment when he heard about the first plane strike on the radio. He soon got a call to return to his home office in Bridgeport and await further instructions.

"No one knew," Sandy recalled of those early hours. "They'll be lying to you if they tell you they knew what was going on."

Soon, he, former Parkersburg Police Officer Jeff James and other agents were deployed to provide additional security at a federal facility in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. A couple days later, they spotted a plane, despite non-military flights having been grounded in the wake of the attacks.

"It'd been a couple days since you'd seen an airplane in the sky," said James, who is retired and recently moved to Vincent, Ohio.

With the Cessna aircraft heading toward Washington, D.C., two Air Force fighters were scrambled to intercept it. They forced the plane to land at a nearby airport and the occupants were briefly detained, James said.

"We didn't know what was going to happen," he said, adding they wondered if the plane would be shot down.

After that assignment ended, Sandy headed to D.C. to work in the nation's first intelligence fusion center.

"For many months, I worked on the intelligence that was coming in from all over the world on 9/11," he said.

In 2003, he and James volunteered to go to Baghdad with the U.S. military.

"We were tracing all of the moneys of the Iraqi regime to where it went throughout the world," Sandy said.

Saddam Hussein's government was getting around United Nations sanctions by manipulating the oil-for-food program, he and James said. James was later sent to work for the U.S. Senate as it investigated the fraud perpetrated through that program.

Through his work in D.C. and Iraq, Sandy said, "I feel that we did a very good job tracing how the hijackers were able to get money into the United States for their flight lessons and to live on.

"That has changed the way that the United States banking system looks at money coming into the United States and without question that has protected" the country, he said.

The lessons learned after 9/11 played a role in transforming West Virginia's Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety into the new state Department of Homeland Security, Sandy said.

***

Like so many communities, the Mid-Ohio Valley paid a high price in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed 9/11. Among the lives lost was Army 1st Lt. Chris Rutherford, a 2000 Frontier High School graduate killed in Iraq in 2007.

Rutherford's death was part of what inspired 2010 Frontier alumnus Kyle Hockenberry to enlist. Hockenberry said recently he remembers standing along the highway with an American flag when Rutherford's remains were returned to the area.

In 2011, Hockenberry was on patrol in Afghanistan when he was caught in the blast of an improvised explosive device. He lost both legs above the knee and his left arm above the elbow.

Hockenberry, now 29 and living in Vienna with his wife, two children and three stepchildren, said what he thinks of first regarding the 9/11 anniversary is the families of the people who died. But he also acknowledges the strange timing with the situation in Afghanistan.

"I guess it just kind of makes you feel like, 'What was it all for?'" he said. "It also is kind of helpful too … it's kind of a reminder that it wasn't for nothing, that we did have a purpose."

***

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

"I still ask why? … It's because we are Americans. We have the freedoms that everyone else wants. (The terrorists) literally ruined the biggest buildings in the richest city in the most powerful nation on Earth. … The Americans found our souls that day. We were all caring about each other, wanting to know if everybody was OK."

Liza Adams, mother of Mary Lou Hague

* * *

"After Sept. 11, our country was joined and people were working together like no other time in my lifetime. … It was probably the most united I've ever seen … the populace, the government and the military."

Glen Kelly, U.S. Army (retired), Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport manager

* * *

"The lessons that we learned 20 years ago (have) led to an agency in West Virginia that is more capable than ever of protecting us against domestic and foreign adversaries."

Jeff Sandy, West Virginia Secretary of Homeland Security

* * *

"One of the things that I regret and actually have felt bad about it and a bit angry, I was called away to do what needed to be done … for the country. For 10 days, I didn't have the opportunity to sit with my children and explain to them what was going on, if anyone could do that."

Jeff James, retired special agent, IRS Criminal Investigation Division

* * *

"I thought things are going to change in America because of the attack. I wondered who did it and if other attacks were coming, but my immediate reaction was for all those people who were killed and their families."

Jess Mancini, Parkersburg News and Sentinel city editor

PDF: Extra edition of the Sept. 11, 2001, Parkersburg News.

Starting at /week.