Two beams of light bright enough to rival the famous Luxor sky beam in Las Vegas are shining over Yorba Linda every night this week, part of a 25th-anniversary tribute to the victims of September 11 at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The lights will be visible nightly between 7 and 9:30 p.m. through September 12, honoring the 2,977 lives lost in the attacks and building toward a public commemoration ceremony on the anniversary itself.
According to the Richard Nixon Foundation, the twin beams were designed to match the brightness of the iconic light column atop the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas — a system that, per ResearchGate, relies on 39 xenon arc lamps burning through 315,000 watts to cast a beam visible to aircraft up to 275 miles away. It's a striking benchmark for a memorial installation, underscoring just how far organizers wanted this year's tribute to reach across the Southern California sky.
A Ceremony Built Around Local Loss
The nightly light display leads up to a commemoration ceremony at the Nixon Library on September 11 at 11 a.m., open to the public, per the foundation's announcement. Among the scheduled speakers is Tom Frost, the father of Lisa Anne Frost, a passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 175 who died in the attacks at age 22. Frost has dedicated his life to honoring his daughter's memory and preserving the stories of September 11, according to the same announcement.
Lisa Anne Frost grew up in Rancho Santa Margarita, graduating salutatorian from Trabuco Hills High School before earning dual degrees as valedictorian from Boston University in May 2001, according to the Historical Marker Database. She was flying home to Orange County ahead of starting a new job in San Francisco when Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Boston University later dedicated the Lisa Frost Student Lounge within its School of Hospitality Administration, and the university had previously honored her with its Scarlet Key award for campus involvement, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum notes.
In the years since, scholarship programs in Lisa Frost's name have been associated with both Boston University and Trabuco Hills High School, and he donated personal items — including his daughter's sixth-grade artwork — to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the museum's blog states. He has also volunteered for nearly two decades at a local church food bank, inspired by his daughter's passion for community service. In December 2001, Orange County community members dedicated a memorial plaque and tree along Lake Santa Margarita in her honor, creating one of the region's earliest permanent 9/11 memorial sites — a lakeside spot that, per the Historical Marker Database, remains a gathering point for reflection every September.
First Responders and Local Institutions Take Part
The September 11 ceremony will include a formal presentation of the colors, along with performances from the OC Master Chorale and the Villa Park High School Band, according to the Nixon Foundation's announcement. The Orange County Fire Authority Pipes and Drums will also perform, and remarks are expected from representatives of both the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the Orange County Fire Authority.
The Nixon Library has anchored Southern California's 9/11 remembrance for decades, with regional law enforcement and fire leadership consistently taking part in its annual programs. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes once called the gathering “the preeminent 9/11 ceremony of the West Coast” during the library's 20th anniversary tribute in 2021, as reported by CBS News. That milestone observance featured 23 tons of World Trade Center steel wreckage transported to the library grounds as a ceremony backdrop, kept on public view around the clock in the parking lot, with the steel's arrival escorted by a motorcycle motorcade, sirens, and a helicopter flyover.
A decade earlier, the library's 10th anniversary observance in September 2011 featured up to 20 tons of World Trade Center steel displayed alongside a damaged FDNY aerial ladder truck, Truck 152, according to a report from the Gina Genis Blog. That exhibit, too, was open to the public 24 hours a day before the artifacts were returned to New York. Past ceremonies have also blended solemn tribute with civic ritual: the 2021 program included five local recruits taking their oaths of enlistment into the U.S. Army on stage, and the Orange County Fire Authority Honor Guard performing a ceremonial bell-ringing “Final Alarm” tribute for the 343 FDNY members killed on 9/11, according to footage and reporting reviewed by CBS News and Getty Images.
Details for Attending
Registration is recommended for the September 11 ceremony, though it does not include admission to the museum's galleries, per the Nixon Foundation. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd. in Yorba Linda. Questions about the event can be directed to Richard Nixon Foundation media contact Carrie Anderson at [email protected], or by phone at 714.364.1116.
