On the night of Sept. 10, 2001, Edward Porter Felt called his mom, Shirley Felt, who was home in Clinton.
Edward told his mother he would be flying to California the next morning from his home in New Jersey to attend a business meeting; the Clinton Class of 1977 graduate spent time traveling back and forth to both places for his job in computer engineering and the early days of cyber security.
Shirley Felt knew her son usually flew on Continental Airlines. When she began hearing of the terrorist acts involving airplanes the morning of Sept. 11, she thought her oldest of three sons was safe. “I knew it couldn’t have been him because he was on another airline,’’ she said.
But when her youngest son, Gordon, came to her home, Shirley said she knew. Ed’s wife Sandy had called her brother-in-law to say her husband had changed flights to get going a little earlier.
Edward Porter Felt, who would have turned 60 years old Nov. 9, instead died at age 41 the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 when United Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. He was one of 33 passengers and seven crew members who perished as they diverted the four terrorists on board from crashing the plane into the U.S. Capitol building.
To recognize the heroic deeds of Felt and the 39 others, Clinton Central School District announced last week that a Flight 93 Sept. 11 Memorial will be built. The Memorial will be set in the Clinton Foundation Memorial Brick Garden on the lawn between the schools and Chenango Avenue.
Bill Huther, a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Committee, said the goal is to both remember those who died that day and keep alive their memories and life-saving…