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Sunset Beach holds 9/11 remembrance; community leaders urge unity, highlight ongoing identification efforts
Summary
At a Sept. 11, 2025 remembrance at the Town of Sunset Beach 9/11 memorial, Mayor Shannon Phillips and community leaders urged unity and remembrance; speakers credited local volunteers for the memorial and noted a national identification effort that a recorded segment said still leaves a substantial share of victims unidentified.
SUNSET BEACH, N.C. — The Town of Sunset Beach gathered at its 9/11 memorial on Sept. 11, 2025, for a remembrance ceremony that mixed prayers, music and reflections on the long-term work of honoring victims and first responders.
Mayor Shannon Phillips delivered greetings on behalf of the town and the town council and urged residents to keep teaching younger generations about the attacks. "It is a shame that it takes a tragedy to bring us together," she said, adding that community gatherings like the ceremony offer an opportunity to work toward common goals.
Karen Joseph, first vice chairperson of the Committee to Honor America’s Veterans and emcee for the event, read a series of figures intended to convey the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and their human cost. Joseph said, as part of the ceremony, that hundreds of civilians and dozens of firefighters, police officers and paramedics were part of the population affected that morning and encouraged attendees to remember both victims and responding personnel.
John Corbett, chairman of the Committee to Honor American Veterans, recounted the committee’s work with the town to organize local commemorations and described the town’s memorial and its surrounding panels. Corbett credited Mary Hughes and local volunteers with starting the original observance and thanked town events staff and others who helped develop the memorial.
A pre-recorded segment shown during the ceremony — a video that originally aired on 60 Minutes — was introduced to the crowd and called attention to the ongoing work by the New York medical examiner to identify victims. The program stated that a substantial share of those lost in the attacks remain without positive identification and that the identification effort continues.
Pastor Jason Benton of Soldier Bay Baptist Church offered the invocation, emphasizing themes of mercy, unity and remembrance; Pastor Travis Byrd of Oakenaubee Drive Church performed the national anthem. The event closed with a musical tribute from the Wilmington Pipe and Drum Corps and a rendition of "Taps." Attendees were invited to read the panels that accompany the memorial.
The ceremony emphasized local contributions to remembrance — the committee and volunteers who established the memorial and added panels — and connected those local efforts to a continuing national identification effort for victims. No formal votes or policy actions were taken during the event; it was a commemorative public ceremony hosted by the town and the Committee to Honor America’s Veterans.
