SHERRILL — The 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony on Sunday in Sherrill offered the chance for the past and present to come together as one, keynote speaker Nolan Miller told the audience.

“This event from our past has helped us to see and utilize the strength that grew our nation,” he explained. “I may not have been born during this actual event but I’ve grown up in the strength the event brought out in individuals, groups and organizations.”

Miller, the president of the Vernon-Verona Sherrill Central School senior class, said he decided to frame his speech around what learning about Sept. 11 means to him today.

He said he has visited the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City and one of the statistics that really touched him was that 880 children lost one or both parents that day.

Now they are in their 20s and have had numerous milestones in their lives, all without seeing the pride that would have been on that lost parent’s face, Miller said.

It is important to never forget that day, he encouraged.

“We are often told by our historians that the past is not for us to change but for us to learn from to keep it from every happening again,” he said.

Ceremony emcee and Sherrill Merchants Association member Ken Brewer explained that certainly everyone who was alive back on that tragic day in 2001 will remember the terrible events in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.

But it was also a time that brought the country together in its aftermath, he noted.

More than 200 flags adorned the hillside at Reilly-Mumford Memorial Park for several days both before and after the event. Those flags were accentuated with tags honoring living and lost first responders, military and other loved ones.

Bagpiper Dan Skinner set the tone for the event with his solemn background music welcoming guests and then returned near the end to perform an inspiring rendition of “Amazing Grace.” VVS senior Devyn Balfe sang the National Anthem and “God Bless America.”

The Sherrill American Legion Honor Guard shot the volley salute and Sean Tarry played taps. A candlelit vigil as the dark of night fell over the crowd accentuated the solemn, memorial theme of the ceremony. Members of the Sherrill-Kenwood Volunteer Fire Department were called out to a structure fire shortly before it began but returned in time to take their own place alongside the park gazebo.

Sherrill residents Rose Hatch and Suzanne Adams-LaLonde walked through the flags - and the drizzle - before the ceremony, reflecting on the flags’ significance.

“This really brings chills to you,” Hatch said while looking at the sea of red, white and blue coloring the city park.

“It’s really a simple thing we can do,” Adams-LaLonde added. “These flags are here to let all of the people we lost that day know that we still remember them.”