Elgin Academy honors 9/11 victim Andrew King

Andrew King had no idea what was going to happen that day.

King, a St. Charles native and a 1977 graduate of Elgin Academy, was a currency trader for the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and worked at the World Trade Center. He was in the building on Sept. 11, 2001.

He called his wife shortly after the first plane hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center, saying that something had hit the building. As the world would later find out, it was a terrorist attack.

King died in the attack. He was 42.

He was one of 2,997 people who were killed in the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in the United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into a Pennsylvania field.

“Our world was less through their loss,” Seth Hanford, Head of School at Elgin Academy, said in talking to students Friday in one of two gatherings at the school’s Andrew King Memorial Garden to remember King. “It was a terrible day, whether you were connected to it or to someone no matter where you lived. The effects of those events and the days immediately following echoed loudly and continue to ring in our ears today.”

At the same time, Hanford noted how the country – and the world – came together following the terrorist attacks.

“People from different political parties, religious traditions, ideological backgrounds and places in the world were brought together in a condemnation of violence and hatred and needless bloodshed,” he said. “The 20 years that have passed have seen our world lose that unity. But I would ask that we as a community, even amongst that division, put those divisions aside for this moment, in this place, to believe once again in peace and unity.”

King was the son of Wesley and Joan King and nephew of former Geneva alderman and historian Merritt King, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 93.

Wesley King, a noted architect, designed and built the Andrew Marshall King Memorial Bridge at the Geneva Golf Club in memory of his son and others who died in the attacks.

When he attended classes at Elgin Academy, King was known as AK by everyone who knew him.

“He was a great friend, the one to whom others turned,” Hanford said. “When he tragically passed away, some of his classmates rallied in the midst of all of their grief in an effort to help make this garden behind me a reality. Not only did they help fund the beautiful spot, but they also gathered in his honor to dig the garden and plant this garden.”

Elgin Academy faculty members also told the students their personal stories about how the day affected them. As Dan Raffety related to them, he received a phone call that morning from his mother who was panicking.

Raffety was working in Boston after recently graduating from college.

“She told me to look at the news,” Raffety said. “I immediately went to a news website on my computer and saw images of the first plane hitting the tower.”

His family had reason to be concerned. His brother was attending Columbia University in New York City at the time and he had a side job of giving tours of Manhattan, which often included a route around the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

“Cell phone service was problematic given the situation and no one was able to get in touch with him,” Raffety said. “We were growing very concerned.”

However, that evening, he heard from his brother.

“My family was extremely lucky that he was all right,” Raffety said. “Many thousands of others were not.”