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Headquarters
AND MORE!
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“The teachers and
coaches at Walker taught
me how to push myself. I
know what I am capable
of now, and they taught
me not to settle for less.”
CURIOUS.
CONFIDENT.
Alexandre Grand'Pierre
LIFELONG LEARNERS.
65 YEARS OF WONDER
Class of 2021
Bowdoin College
Swimming
PK(3)-12
THEWALKERSCHOOL.ORG
(678) 540-7229
REMEMBERED, NOT FORGOTTEN
two years later he would make his way to Atlanta to
pursue a PhD. But his story doesn’t end there.
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Vaughn was in a
meeting in Atlanta when news broke that a plane hit the
North Tower. At first, Vaughn, who had not seen any
news coverage of the event, assumed the plane must have
been a small charter flight with one or two passengers –
an accident. The meeting ended when news broke that a
second plane hit the South Tower. After hearing that a
plane had hit the Pentagon, Vaughn said he realized
America was under attack.
“You just get scared and angry, in disbelief,” he said.
“A lot of emotions overcome you at one time.”
Through the shock and confusion, Vaughn tried to
reach his family in New York City, including his oldest
daughter, whose elementary school sat just five blocks
from the World Trade Center.
“The landlines aren’t working, the cell phones aren’t
working, there’s just no way to communicate,” he said.
After picking up his middle daughter from preschool
in Atlanta, Vaughn sat down with his daughter and went
numb, unable to reach his aunts, his uncles, his 5-yearold
daughter and others in New York City.
“You couldn’t reach any family members and figure
out who was alive and who wasn’t,” he said. “But you
obviously knew people were going to die.”
Vaughn lost an unknown number of friends,
colleagues and schoolmates that day. One of his closest
friends growing up, Jeffrey Dingle, a married father of
two, died in the World Trade Center. He was only a year
older than Vaughn.
“When we get old, people pass but you don’t expect
someone your age to die,” he said. “We were in disbelief
and shock.”
In 2019, Vaughn traveled to New York City and
visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
At first, he couldn’t remember where the towers stood,
until he realized he was standing on them.
His hand rested over the name he sought to find
among the 2,983 inscribed on the bronze parapets on the
memorial pools: Jeffrey Dingle. On the twentieth
anniversary, Vaughn said he will attend the Field of Flags
at Kennesaw Mountain to reflect and later join the 100
Black Men of North Metro Atlanta for COVID Vaccination
Day for community service.
“I think that we can always reflect on how privileged
we are and fortunate we are to live in America,” he said.
“Being the imperfect country that we are, there’s no other
place I’d rather live.”
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