09/10/2026
🕰️✨ ✨🕰️
Let's take a trip down memory lane and revisit some cherished moments from our community's history! Each week, on Thursday, we are going to "throw it back" and share a piece of our community history with you.
Our Throwback Thursday article takes a bit of an interesting path this week--our community's link to September 11th. Clear Lake has had many wonderful businesses serve our community over the decades. Jacobson Electric was one of those businesses and was a full-service, family-owned electrical contractor located at 801 Buddy Holly Place. In 1948, Warren Jacobson and his wife Betty settled in Clear Lake and Warren took a job with Rice Electric, working there 13 years before he opened his own business. Warren started his own business in 1960 and ran it for 32 years before turning it over to his son, Larry in 1992. Clear Lake's connection to 9/11 comes from Warren's wife Betty (Roberts) who had a sister Beverly who was married to a Thomas Edward Burnett, Sr.
Betty (Roberts) Jacobson from Clear Lake was the aunt of Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. one of the heroic passengers who helped lead the revolt against hijackers on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. As we prepare to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the terrorists' attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001, let us look closer at the relationship of Tom Burnett, Jr. to Clear Lake. Besides having an aunt from Clear Lake, the officiating pastor at Tom and Deena's wedding was not other than Msgr. Joseph Slepicka, the parish priest of St. Patrick's Catholic church in Clear Lake from 1955-1999. Msgr. Slepicka was a life-long friend of Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., the father of Tom, Jr. who was one of the four passengers who coordinated the storming of the cockpit on Flight 93. Msgr. Slepicka accompanied the Burnett family on their first visit to the Pennsylvania crash site in April 2002 and even offered Mass in the field of honor. The remains recovered of Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. are buried at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in MN. The Flight 93 National Memorial is located in Sommerset County, PA. A 17.5-ton sandstone bolder marks the spot where the plane slammed into the ground as the passengers attempted to take control of the plane from the terrorists. The bolder was placed at the crash site in 2011 for the opening of the Flight 93 National Memorial.
The Clear Lake Volunteer Fire Department has annually offered a commemoration event on each September 11th. This coming Friday will be no exception. This year's keynote speaker is Chief Richard Picciotto, a 28-year veteran from the FDNY and the highest-ranking firefighter to survive the World Trade Center collapse. He led FDNY Battalion 11 from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Chief Picciotto was also on duty during the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The commemoration begins at 6:00 PM at the Clear Lake Fire Station. (The History Channel produced the documentary, "The Miracle of Stairway B" in 2006. It can be found on YouTube.)
