State officials and the loved ones of victims killed on 9/11 will gather in front of the State House on Thursday to honor the lives lost in the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania 24 years ago.
The Massachusetts 9/11 Fund will hold its annual name reading ceremony on the steps at 8:30 a.m., the organization said on its website. Healey will participate in a presentation of the American flag before the names of more than 200 people with Massachusetts ties who were killed in the attacks are read aloud.
Healey will also participate in the reading of the names, along with her partner, Joanna Lydgate, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell , and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
The event will move inside to the State House Chamber at 9:30 a.m., where Driscoll will present the Madeline Amy Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery. Sweeney
The ceremony will include a video tribute to the victims, musical performances by Apollo Club of Boston, and remarks by victims’ relatives as well as former Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, today head of the NHL Players’ Association. A keynote speech will be by former Boston Bruins player Bob Sweeney, the longtime director of the Boston Bruins Foundation.
Garnet “Ace” Bailey, a popular Bruin who played on the 1972 Stanley Cup Championship team, was killed on United Flight 175 which was hijacked and flown into the South Tower at the World Trade Center.
Bailey was 53, a Lynnfield resident, who was working as a scout for the Los Angeles Kings.
In the afternoon, officials will also gather at the 9/11 memorial in the Boston Public Garden for a wreath-laying ceremony at 1 p.m.
New to the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund’s annual remembrance, this year’s program includes roundtable discussions with high school students led by Sweeney, Walsh, and Patrick Bavis, whose brother, Mark, was among the passengers who also perished on United Flight 175.
Educating young people about 9/11 is critical to learn about “the impact of one of the most transformative days in our nation’s history and its links to Massachusetts,” the organization said.
“The fact is that high school students today — and even some teachers — were not alive on that fateful day in 2001,“ the organization said in a statement. ”Many do not even know that more than 200 people with ties to Massachusetts perished in the attacks, and that two of the planes originated out of Boston’s Logan International Airport.”
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks as two hijacked planes crashed into the two World Trade Center towers in New York, a third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth saw passengers and crew attempt to overtake the hijackers. The plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside.
A ceremony to mark the anniversary will also be held at the Massachusetts Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Ashburton Park. The event begins with a Uniformed Firefighter March with bagpipes and drums, which steps off from Boston Common at Beach and Charles streets at 4:45 p.m., according to a notice on social media.
Boston will also join New York’s “Tribute in Light” by illuminating numerous major buildings and landmarks in blue from dusk until midnight on Thursday.
At Logan International Airport in Boston, where two of the flights that were hijacked took off on the morning of 9/11, members of the US Navy will conduct a bell-ringing ceremony at the airport’s 9/11 Memorial beginning at 7 a.m., said Jennifer Mehigan, a Massport spokesperson.
“The 9/11 memorial is available to any and all who would like to come and reflect,” she said in an email.
The Transportation Security Administration will also hold a moment of silence at screening locations in the airport at 8:46 a.m. and 1 p.m., according to Massport.
Several other cities and towns in Massachusetts are planning smaller memorial events to mark the anniversary.
In Cambridge, firefighters will hold a “brief, respectful remembrance ceremony” at each of the city’s firehouses at 9:50 a.m., according to the fire department’s website.
The Brookline Fire Department will hold its annual 9/11 remembrance ceremony at 9 a.m. at its firehouse on Babcock Street, according to the town’s police department.
Also on Thursday, North Andover will honor the anniversary at 9 a.m. at the firehouse at 9 Salem St.; Taunton officials will host a ceremony at Martin Middle School at 10 a.m.; and a 9/11 commemoration in Newton is scheduled for 6 p.m. on the front lawn of the Newton Centre Fire Department Headquarters on Centre Street.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.
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