St. Johns County School District leaders gathered Sept. 11 at Bartram Trail High School for a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The ceremony centered on the school's "Victory V" sculpture, a courtyard memorial that incorporates a piece of steel debris from the fallen World Trade Center. News4JAX reported the event was livestreamed for families and community members who could not attend in person.

Sculpture's Origins Trace Back to 2002

The sculpture has stood in Bartram Trail's courtyard since Sept. 11, 2002, when then-Gov. Jeb Bush attended its unveiling. Art teacher Robert Kirk created the piece by joining twisted World Trade Center steel with pristine stainless steel to form the letter "V" for victory.

The 6-foot-long, 700-pound I-beam arrived at the St. Johns school after students in the Young Republicans Club wrote letters to New York's Office of Emergency Management requesting a piece of the wreckage. Former Principal Jim Springfield traveled to New York City on May 21, 2002, to retrieve it, according to a Florida Times-Union report. The Times-Union described it as the first piece of the fallen World Trade Center to come to Florida.

One of Only 73 Debris Pieces Nationwide

According to school records cited by multiple sources, only 73 pieces of World Trade Center debris were donated nationally. The Bartram Trail piece is believed to be the only one housed in an American high school.

Former Students Reflect on the Memorial

Mark Miner, a former Bartram Trail student who helped launch the letter-writing campaign as a member of the Young Republicans Club, reflected on the sculpture's meaning in a 2011 interview with the Florida Times-Union. "That is what we do in America; we get knocked down and we get back up," Miner said.

Then-Gov. Rick Scott also spoke at the sculpture on Sept. 11, 2014, addressing the student body on the 13th anniversary of the attacks.

Springfield, reflecting on the sculpture's purpose in the same 2011 Times-Union interview, said students at that time "would have been in the second grade then and don't remember it. They have to walk by it every day and think of it."