When the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the staff at the News Tribune was doing what most Americans were at that time - going about their daily routine.
For Doug Waggoner, then executive editor of the News Tribune, that meant being in the newsroom on Monroe Street, beginning to lay out the pages for that day's edition of the Jefferson City Post Tribune, an afternoon publication at the time. He was sitting at his desk when the first bulletin came across the Associated Press wire: a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
It was just before 9 a.m.
Like many who recall the events of that day, Waggoner said his first thought was that it must have been a strange accident. So he turned on the TV in the newsroom to see if there was more information available.
Richard McGonegal, then managing editor, recalled being at a meeting at the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. As he returned to the News Tribune and entered the newsroom, he saw the staff huddled around the TV and knew something big was happening. When he was told that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers, his first thought was "what a bizarre accident."
Then the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.
And everyone knew this was no accident.
"That's when I realized this was deliberate," McGonegal said. "Everybody was just in disbelief. It was like watching something from a movie. Nobody could really grasp the magnitude or the malice that went into it."
Waggoner had to begin collecting whatever he could off the national wire service for the day's edition, which included hundreds of versions of the main article and lots of related articles looking at effects on the military, air traffic and foreign relations, among many others. The deadline for the afternoon edition was 11:30 a.m., maybe noon if they could really push it, he recalled, so they had to quickly get everything planned and ready.
"It was just such a constant rush," Waggoner said.
Like Waggoner, McGonegal's thoughts quickly turned to the practical matter of the day's edition. He had to write a new editorial. The staff had to quickly get the relevant national coverage and get out into the community to gather the local viewpoints.
"I thought, 'I've got to try and make sense of this,'" McGonegal said. "And it's almost impossible to understand."
The editorial he wrote in the hours after the attacks showed the rage and grief felt by many at the time. It ended with the following passage:
"The miscreants, presumably terrorists, who perpetrated these malevolent attacks also remain unknown.
"They must be identified, and they and their ilk must be exterminated like the vermin they have shown themselves to be.
"America has been attacked mercilessly. To serve notice that this must never happen again, our response must be equally merciless."
Reading it 20 years later, McGonegal was surprised at the language.
"That's a little severe, but it was a gut reaction to a massive slaughter," he said. "It was a very raw, emotional response."
Tom Rackers and Tony Hawley also were in the newsroom when that first bulletin came across the wire. The pair worked on the sports desk, where Rackers still serves as editor. After realizing the enormity of what was happening, they both recalled doing their best to finish sports pages quickly, in order to either help or simply "get out of the way" of the news staff.
That willingness to jump in and help when a situation arises is something consistent in the News Tribune newsroom, and it was evident on Sept. 11.
"That's always been one of the virtues of this newsroom," McGonegal said. "These guys have always been great about rallying. And it happens particularly when there are major stories, both national and local."
The team atmosphere and the veteran journalists on staff made McGonegal's job much easier, he said. After breaking up the huddle around the TV, he said he didn't really need to tell the staff exactly what to do. Each staff member seemed to jump in and do what was needed on their own.
It's something Michelle Brooks remembers as well. A News Tribune reporter at the time, Brooks said she saw how everyone quickly stepped up.
"I grew immensely in admiration for everybody that I worked with," Brooks said.
Brooks said she remembers that morning and staffers, one-by-one, gathering around the TV as the coverage continued. After McGonegal broke up the group, they began the practical matter of covering local stories related to what was happening.
For Brooks, that meant going to the Missouri National Guard Ike Skelton Training Center where a press conference was going on. That first assignment turned into the beginning of a new beat for Brooks, who began regularly covering local National Guard efforts, including many deployments over the following years.
"I remember the day being, from a professional standpoint, bigger than me," Brooks said. "This is so huge, so overwhelming and how do I do it justice, in my little world, my piece. I don't want to mess it up."
Kris Hilgedick was just returning to the newsroom from covering an early morning city meeting when the attacks happened.
"The impact of what happened was immediately known," Hilgedick said.
Her next story, which published Sept. 12, looked at the local rush to buy gas as the aftermath set off a panic that a gas shortage may be next. Later that week, she covered a large prayer service at the Capitol for the Sept. 14 edition.
"We were all just trying to grasp at how to make this story (local)," Hilgedick said, referring to how a newsroom works to take a national story and show the effects on the local community.
Opinion Editor Gerry Tritz was the weekend editor at the time and was home on a day off from work when the attacks happened.
"Fear started setting in, fear of the unknown," Tritz recalled. "It was just a sense of fear but also a sense of powerlessness."
As he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening, he made his way to the News Tribune, even though he knew there wasn't really much he could do there yet.
"I just wanted to, I think, be around other people, and I wanted to be in the newsroom to find out the best I could about what was happening," Tritz said.
Online editor Rick Brown also was home the morning of the attacks, as he typically worked overnight as the webmaster. But after learning of the attacks, Brown said he came to the newsroom where he could get something on the News Tribune's website.
But in 2001, the internet was still in its earlier days. Brown said the News Tribune site was updated twice per day, with the morning and afternoon editions, but even that was progressive for the time.
"It wasn't typical to just update throughout the day," Brown said.
Photojournalist Julie Smith said when thinking back to the coverage of the time, she remembers how people in the community simply wanted to help in the aftermath of the attacks, but didn't know how. Prayer services and vigils were quick to form all over, she recalled, and people were looking to embrace each other and show a sense of community.
In her role, Smith has to travel all over the area to photograph everything from the empty shelves that once held American flags to the lines to cars trying to fill up at the gas station. By the end of the week, Smith, like so many others, remembers being just emotionally drained.
After his shift ended Sept. 11, 2001, Rackers said he remembers going to church, where he saw about 30-40 others on a Tuesday afternoon, each looking for comfort in the face of the unknown.
The days that followed are a blur for many of the News Tribune staff members. Rackers remembers many area games being canceled, but others were quick to try and return to a sense of normalcy. Hawley said many people wanted to show the world that America was still strong by continuing with events unchanged.
"Things bounced back remarkably quickly," Hawley said.
And working was a welcome distraction. Tritz said part of a natural coping mechanism is to focus on work, to create a distraction from the chaos and unknowns.
"I think just like any news event, even the ones that affect us, we always try to soldier on and do our jobs," Tritz said. "Sometimes doing your job helps take your mind off the pain of what's actually going on."
Looking back, McGonegal remembered how the attacks changed the feel of the newsroom that day. He said he always enjoyed working at the News Tribune because of the generally upbeat mood that existed there. But things changed that morning.
"The mood was different," McGonegal said. "It was almost a palpable sadness and somber mood in the newsroom."
Like everyone that day, the staff at the News Tribune was baffled by what had happened. And 20 years later, the feelings from that morning are still resonating.
"It defied any sense of humanity," McGonegal said. "It was just so malicious, so malevolent, so evil. This shroud of evil had descended over everything and everybody, including us."