The Naples Press

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Retired fire captain Christopher Spencer remembers his feeling of disbelief when he saw the televised images of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Spencer started his career at age 16 in 1976 as a volunteer firefighter. He later served with the Fire Department of the City of New York for five years before retiring for the first time and moving to Southwest Florida in 1993. He was with the Marco Island Fire Department at the time of the terrorist attacks on Sept.

Kristine Pannone loved the artisans market back in her Rhode Island home town. and wondered why Naples could not have the same thing: a limited-hour market for arts and artisan work, with classes in various skills from those artists and some rotating spots for artists to come on a week-by-week basis. Kristine Pannone, creator of the Artisans Market, 8793 U.S. 41 E. at Lely Square, Naples, stands in front of an array of locally made and represented goods at the grand opening.

The manager and coaches of the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels minor league baseball team serve as mentors for players striving to make it to the majors someday. In a similar relationship behind the scenes, Ballpark Operations Manager Dalton Daniels has been developing the skills of promotion department intern Alex Mesa, who hopes to forge a career in the sports industry.

Donna Shands in a photo taken around 2001. Donna Shands was in a meeting when the explosion rocked her building. American Airlines Flight 77, highjacked over the Ohio River as it flew toward Los Angeles, had made a deadly turn toward its target and had plowed into the western outer building of the Pentagon. Shands, a longtime civilian employee for the U.S. government, had lived in Hawaii and her mind immediately registered: earthquake.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, Naples Police Cpl. Sean Phillips is still waging a quiet battle with the World Trade Center Health Program. He is healing from the second condition he has faced since 9/11, when, as a New York Police Department highway patrolman, he had to hand his 5-month-old baby to his neighbor until his wife could get home, then dash into Manhattan to begin four solid days on duty.

As the events of Sept. 11, 2001, unfolded, journalists scrambled to gather facts and understand the chaos that had changed the world in a matter of hours. June Fletcher and David Silverberg, married journalists who lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., at the time and now live in Naples, remember their reactions as journalists — and parents — to the attack on the Pentagon.

Marvin Lader had planned a wonderful surprise for his wife, Carol, on her 65th birthday — a party in her honor, the happy conclusion to a vacation in London. Little did he know the repercussions that surprise party would have for them. The Laders were flying back to Cleveland Sept. 11 with two couples who had come to London for the event, when the pilot came on the speaker system with shocking news: They would not be going home.

On 9/11, Ray Leshinger arrived at lower Manhattan on a volunteered charter fishing boat. When Anthony Ferraro found the Manhattan bridges shut down, he caught what would be the last Staten Island Ferry bound for Manhattan that day. All the others had become temporary morgues. John Wallace was dispatched to the United Nations, which was designated a potential target for whoever was raining horror from the skies.

Arabella Michel caught the pleasing sight of the light of sunset gleaming on the side of the 1947 Seaboard Budd Observation Tavern Car situated just outside the window she was facing while playing Uno with her mother Tamara. One table away, Peter Kulicki chuckled as he landed in jail, which elicited laughs from his wife Ayleen, their son Elliot and his friend Dylan Fatica during a game of Monopoly.