Sarasota students with Bush on 9/11 recall moment in history

A decade ago, they were wide-eyed second graders reading a book about a pet goat with a special guest in their classroom.

In the blink of an eye, the time it takes for one man to whisper in the ear of another, they had front-row seats to being a part of history that changed the world.

Today, many are seniors in high school. They have dreams of dancing, of becoming engineers, of being a bigger part of the world that was altered so much that day.

It was Sept. 11, 2001, and it was more than just another routine Tuesday in Sandra Kay Daniels' class at Emma E. Booker Elementary in Sarasota.

After all, the president of the United States was coming to read with them.

George W. Bush was headed to the school to announce a new reading initiative. He learned of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center tower about 10 minutes before arriving.

At that time, it likely seemed like it was just a tragic, isolated accident. So the visit went on as scheduled.

But a few minutes later, as the class was reading "The Pet Goat," Chief of Staff Andrew Card walked over to the president, who sat in front of the class. He leaned down to whisper to him that a second plane had just flown into the second tower in New York City.

"I can remember seeing his expression change dramatically," says Lazaro Dubrocq, who is now a 17-year-old senior at Riverview High School in Sarasota. "He seemed almost anxious, disconcerted, worried.

"He was looking around the room for a few seconds," adds Dubrocq, who plans to attend Columbia University and study chemical engineering. "He wasn't paying attention to the group of students who were in front of him."

When you're 7, Chantal Guerrero says, you don't try to figure out why one man is whispering in the ear of the president.

"I didn't think about it too much," says Guerrero, who is now also 17 and plans a career in music therapy or dance therapy. "I thought about it for a couple of seconds and then it passed.

"I remember he kind of sat back in his seat and his face looked like he was thinking," says the student who is now a senior at Sarasota Military Academy. "He didn't show that he was freaking out or anything. He kept his composure pretty well. If someone was older than me, they could probably tell that something was wrong."

Bush never let on to the class what had happened. He sat in front of them – just a couple of feet away from Guerrero – and listened to them finish reading the book.

Then he spoke to the teacher, shook the hands of all of the children and gave them some candy.

After that, he went into the school library and told the world what had happened with the hijacked airliners being turned into missiles at the hands of terrorists.

"We didn't know what happened until after he left," Guerrero says. "Our teacher explained everything to us. But even after she explained it, it was still confusing to me.

"All I knew is that something really bad had happened."

Dubrocq, who is captain of the wrestling team at his high school, remembers the teacher turning on the television with the sound down and calmly explaining what had happened after the president left the classroom.

"I remember when I first saw the television broadcast, I thought it was some kind of action movie that was being shown," he says.

It was no movie. It was reality. A new reality for the United States from that day forward.

Both students believe that Bush did the right thing by staying with them and completing the reading of the book instead of abandoning them immediately after being told about the second plane.

"In my opinion, him leaving five minutes earlier could not have changed a lot," Guerrero says.

"I applaud him for how he handled it," Dubrocq says. "He handled it to the best of his abilities."

The teen who wants to be an engineer still has the candy from Bush in his refrigerator. It's a box of chocolate M&Ms that is still wrapped in plastic, complete with the president's signature and the presidential seal.

"My parents wouldn't allow me to eat it," he says. "They wanted me to hold on to it and treasure it."

Besides the candy, the visit from the president and being part of history taught Dubrocq other things as well.

"I understood there are people out there who hate the United States," he says.

Guerrero says that the things Americans endure now – tighter security at airports, heightened awareness of the potential risks that are out there – are worth the price.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," she says. "You never know when something like this can happen again."