By Shane Goodman Publisher/Editor

Just waking up from a bad night's sleep in a quiet hotel outside Kansas City while visiting a customer the evening prior, I turned on the TV while getting dressed. In the midst of a morning stretch, I caught a glimpse of video footage being played on the morning news showing a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers in New York City. Very odd, I thought, but I wasn't too concerned at that point. Once dressed and checked out of the hotel, I began traveling up I-35 and heard radio reports of another plane crashing. I stopped into a truck stop with dozens of other people, all in complete silence, watching the video playing over and over again.

I was the publisher of a small, daily newspaper at the time, and I was scrambling with cell phone calls to my editor in attempts to get the story and photos in our afternoon paper, which was already completed and ready to go to press. Amidst the chaos and deadlines, the magnitude of the tragedy failed to sink in until I arrived home safely to my wife and daughters.

This, of course, was Sept. 11, 2001, and those memories are etched in my mind, just as they are with many of you. We captured some of these memories in this week's cover story, as we look back on that tragic day.

Thanks for reading. CV