Bunker Hill Middle School Eighth-Graders Create Painting to Help Draw Attention to 9/11 Fallen Beam

Bunker Hill Middle School eighth-graders (left to right) Ava Sadowski, Olivia Pentz, Jessica Frantes-Golingho, and Isabella Manna present their finished painting to Mr. Frank Indriso and the library staff on the final day of school, Monday, June 12th. 

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – Back in 2001, Bunker Hill Middle School was presented with a piece of a fallen beam from one of the Twin Towers that fell on September 11th. When Frank Indriso started at the school as library/media specialist, he created a platform to display the beam. But Indriso and fellow media specialist Liz Thomas sought some way to draw more attention to the beam, as many staff and students would just walk past it with no knowledge of its significance.

Enter art teacher Mike Murro, who spoke with Indriso and hatched a plan to “create a painting that commemorated the old Manhattan skyline with the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty standing together as an appropriate tribute to the steel artifact and the need to properly honor those whose lives were lost.”

As a result, a group of eighth-graders – Ava Sadowski, Olivia Pentz, Jessica Frantes-Golingho, Isabella Manna, Madison Slimm, and Kylie Martinez – jumped at the opportunity to create a larger Impressionism-style painting based on the skills and concepts they learned in Art 8 this year. The students worked countless hours during lunch, study hall, after school, and any free time they were allowed. It took months of continuous hard work to complete, but they never stopped contributing and refining the work to perfection.  

Ava Sadowski, Olivia Pentz, Jessica Frantes-Golingho, and Isabella Manna presented the finished painting to Indriso and the library staff on the final day of school, Monday, June 12th. 

Bunker Hill will have the painting properly framed, as the library now will have the visual dedication that this piece of history rightly deserves.

- WTPS -