SEQUIM — Police Chief Bill Dickinson, Officer Randy Kellas and Detective Darrell Nelson were crossing Minnesota on Thursday, headed back home to Sequim in a truck pulling an 843-pound artifact they picked up in New York City earlier this week.
It is a 3-foot piece of metal from the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, destroyed 10 years ago at the site today known as Ground Zero.
It was the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history.
“I got an email at 10 a.m., and it said they just entered Minnesota,” Victoria Ormand, Dickinson’s assistant, said Thursday morning.
Ormand said she expects the three will return by noon Sunday, right on time after the long, hard drive to mark the 10th anniversary of the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center.
The square piece of metal will go on display at the Museum & Arts Center’s DeWitt building, 544 N. Sequim Ave., across from Sequim High School, from noon until 3 p.m. Sunday.
From there, the artifact will be displayed at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4760, 169 E. Washington St., from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The artifact should become part of a permanent monument, Dickinson said he believes.
He plans to speak to the Sequim City Council about erecting it in front of City Hall, 152 W. Cedar St.
Sequim Mayor Ken Hays has said the issue of a permanent place for the artifact could be addressed at the 6 p.m. Monday meeting of the Sequim City Council.
The police chief and officers left Sequim on Sept. 1 to get the artifact.
After arriving in New York and picking it up, the officers visited the three sites of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the memorial for United Flight 93 in the Pennsylvania field where it crashed after courageous passengers tried to fight al-Qaida terrorist hijackers commandeering the aircraft believed to be headed for the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Through police spokesman Detective Sgt. Sean Madison, Dickinson on Thursday said the memorial for Flight 93, though the smallest, was the most emotional for the trio.
It contained the texts of many of the final cellphone calls the passengers of the doomed plane made to their loved ones before the plane crashed and killed all aboard.
The 10-day journey will end when the chief and officers arrive in a truck pulling a trailer bearing the artifact to the Museum & Arts Center’s DeWitt Administration Center at noon Sunday.
Two Clallam County Fire District No. 3 ladder trucks will be positioned opposite the MAC site on North Sequim Avenue, and members of the Patriot Guard are expected to line the street approach.
A fire engine and an aide vehicle, members of the American Legion Riders, the Patriot Guard and Sequim police officers will provide an escort for the final miles of the trip.
Mayor Pro Tem Laura Dubois and City Manager Steve Burkett will officially welcome the officers when the cavalcade arrives and read a statement from the mayor.
It was former Police Chief Bob Spinks, who resigned from his post July 2, 2010, at Burkett’s urging, who applied for the artifact.
Dickinson received word several months later that Sequim could have one of the artifacts.
Community members have donated money for the expenses of the trip.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
