Casey Lockhard Reflects Twenty Years Later

Casey Lockard was just 6 years old on September 11, 2001. Even though she remembers little of what happened on that day 20 years ago, she grew up realizing the gravity of that moment in the post-9/11 world, and the effect it has had on her life, just like everyone else’s.

A photo of her as a little girl, taken on the Friday after the attacks at a candlelight vigil at the First Presbyterian Church in Southampton, graced the cover of The Southampton Press a week after the attacks.

“I remember that I was in first grade in school,” Ms. Lockard, now 26 and still a local resident, recalls of September 11. “My grandma was the nurse growing up in elementary school. I believe she came and got us, and my grandpa picked us up. I remember all of the staff was very hectic.”

She admits not remembering much about the days leading up to the vigil held three days after the attacks. “I remember the photo, but I don’t really remember much of the candlelight vigil,” she said. “As you get older you realize what happened and how severe it was.

Ms. Lockard acknowledged a realization that the world had changed that day, and it affected people differently. “My brother Kenny was in fourth grade when it happened, and then he fought in the war,” she said. “He did two tours in Afghanistan, and now he’s in the FDNY — so it affected everyone, even people that I grew up with.”

She said she has friends whose parents were in the FDNY in 2001, and much of her own family volunteers in local departments. “I feel like everybody here is community based — I think it made a difference,” she said.

Today, Casey Lockard is a teaching assistant at the Tuckahoe School. She is currently getting her master’s degree, with plans to become an elementary school teacher.

DANA SHAW