EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece originally ran Sept. 12, 2001.

The words coming over the school’s loudspeaker were almost unbelievable.

One of the two hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday morning was piloted by the father of two Bishop Guertin High School students.

As students were becoming aware of what was happening in New York, they learned that John Ogonowski was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, which was the first plane to strike the World Trade Center just before 9 a.m.

Ogonowski’s two daughters – Laura, 16, and Caroline, 14 – were taken out of class by a guidance counselor and driven home when the school found out their father had been killed.

Once the girls were gone, a schoolwide announcement was made that two students had been affected, said Principal Edward Quinn.

The news silenced an already quiet school. By 10 a.m., roughly an hour after Flight 11 plummeted into one of the towers, every television set in the school was tuned in to the breaking news, Quinn said.

Some students were frantic to use phones to check on family members in lower Manhattan and other parts of New York City. Others were simply glued to the television. Quinn made rounds between classrooms. He said few people were talking. Teachers and students alike were just absorbing the shock and horror of what was going on.

"No one talked," student Amber Bergeron said. "It was stone-like. We were all just crying and quiet. It was very bleak."

When the Ogonowskis found out their father had been killed, all Bergeron said she could hear was wailing. She said everyone immediately knew someone had died. Soon after, they heard for sure.

Quinn said it was hard not to be affected by the day’s events. "It was a shock," he said. "I felt weak trying to fathom this. I think that was the look on everyone’s face – shock. We kept hearing one more thing. It was like, ‘Where will this end?’

"It’s like Lee Harvey Oswald all over again," he said, referring to the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Quinn was a teacher at Chelmsford High School then, and said that day was similar to Tuesday in that the country seemed to stop.

This was not the first time the Bishop Guertin community had been affected by a terrorist attack. Stephen Boland, a BG graduate from Nashua who was a student at Syracuse University, was among 270 people killed in the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland.

"People who haven’t been through this just don’t know the feeling," said his mother, Jane Boland.

With the magnitude of this tragedy, millions of people across the country and the world will be touched by Tuesday’s events, she said.

"You can’t put a word to it. Their families are just totally devastated," she said.

As devastating as the day’s events were, it was an opportunity to reflect and learn, as individuals and as a school, Quinn said. He called it a "teachable moment."

"We need to look at who we are," Quinn said. "What our posture is in the world. We need to ask why we were the target."

After a couple of hours, when the news became repetitious, the televisions were turned off. People started getting back to their schedules as best they could.

Not all local schools took an open approach to Tuesday’s events.

In the Nashua public schools, teachers were instructed by Superintendent Joseph Giuliano to keep televisions off in classrooms and refrain from speaking about what happened as much as possible.

Giuliano said he ordered teachers to "try to keep things as normal as possible without making students aware." Giuliano said if students left school without knowing about the tragedy, they would watch it on TV when they get home and hopefully talk about it with their parents.

Giuliano said today should be different.

"We expect there would be a lot of discussion about it in our schools (Wednesday)," Giuliano said. "Once it becomes public knowledge, I would encourage people to talk about it."