Lasting

A unique tribute to a Kentucky-bred naval officer, killed in the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks.

The ancient Greeks saw true immortality in how you were remembered. Names such as Plato, Odysseus, Alexander, etc. prove to have a lasting quality.

For Edward T. Earhart, his immortality was assured by the naming of an undersea mountain between Australia and New Zealand the Earhart Seamount. A meteorologist whose job including knowing where all carriers were in relation to icebergs, Earhart was familiar with the area, having traveled there with the Navy.

His is not the only seamount named for a victim of 9/11. Earhart's seamount is one of a pair. The second is named for Earhart's co-worker, Matthew Flocco. Earhart went in the morning of the attacks in order to help Flocco with his new job.

On board Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, there were two National Geographic Society colleagues on their way to study the Channel Islands off the coast of California. There are seamounts named for them as well.

Appropriate, I think. It's interesting to see the various ways these people have been remembered--from Ale 8-1 (Earhart's family leaves one at his grave on his birthday and the anniversary of his death) to great underwater mountains. Like the makeshift memorials after 9/11, they tell a story and give insight into the personality and life of the person honoured.