WE ARE ... MARSHALL

WE REMEMBER!

WE ARE...MARSHALL!!

Good Morning,

Just a quick check-in with all of my blogger friends. If you've read my profile, you may or may not have noticed that I am a proud graduate of Marshall University. We are a school tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains along the mighty Ohio River. While many may have never heard of our school until the movie starring Matthew McConaughey appeared in box offices (I was actually on campus while they were filming), we in Huntington (and beyond) hold today as one of saddest days in school history. 

At 7:35 pm on November 14, 1970, an aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the Tri-State Airport, killing all 75 people on board. The plane was carrying 37 members of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, eight members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters, four flight crew members and one employee of the charter company. The team was returning home after a 17–14 loss to the East Carolina Pirates at Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, North Carolina. The impact of the crash on Huntington went far beyond the Marshall campus. Because it was the Herd's only chartered flight of the season, many boosters and prominent citizens were on the plane, including a city councilman, a state legislator and four physicians. Seventy children lost at least one parent in the crash, with 18 of them left orphaned.

This evening at exactly 7:35pm, the memorial fountain will be shut off for the season. It's a very moving ceremony and I'm sad that I won't be able to be there. So for everyone who lost their life, lost a family member, a friend, a coworker, today we remember.