Samohi will erect memorial for resident who died on 9-11
While the terrorist attacks that took place one year ago today may have occurred thousands of miles away, the effects still resonate here.
Santa Monica residents Dora Menchaca, 45, and Carolyn Beug, 48, were aboard airplanes that were hijacked and flown into the Pentagon and the north tower of the World Trade Center, respectively.
Menchaca was on American Airlines flight 77, which took off from Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Beug was aboard American Airlines flight 11 that originated from Boston.
Menchaca, who was a Sunset Park resident, is survived by her husband Earl Dorsey, a 19-year-old daughter, Imani Dorsey, and a 5-year-old son, Jaryd Dorsey.
Beug, who lived in a north of Montana Avenue neighborhood, is survived by her husband John Beug, twin 19-year-old daughters Lauren and Lindsey Mayer- Beug, and a 13-year-old son, Nicky.
Both were proud mothers of local student athletes.
Menchaca’s daughter, Imani, was a star soccer player at Harvard-Westlake before joining the soccer team at the University of Portland as a starting middle forward. Menchaca and her husband were known for not missing any of their daughter’s games, even after she moved to Portland.
Imani Dorsey said through a University of Portland spokesperson that she did not want to give any interviews during the one-year anniversary marking her mother’s death.
“She needs to circle the wagons and try to deal with this if that’s at all possible,” said Loren Wohlgemuth, the university’s spokeswoman.
Because of a rigorous soccer schedule, Imani will not be returning to Santa Monica today, he said.
University administrators said a recent interview Imani had given to The Oregonian newspaper overwhelmed her. In the article, published last Wednesday, Imani said she doesn’t want to be reminded by the anniversary of the tragic event.
“For me, I wish it wasn’t such a big deal,” she told The Oregonian. “People say they want to keep the memory alive, but I don’t expect to feel any more pain that day than I feel every day.”
“People say they want to keep the memory alive, but I don’t expect to feel any more pain that day than I feel every day.” — — IMANI DORSEY Victim’s daughter
She told the newspaper that dwelling on those events will not help her move forward and heal.
“For the first day and week, I played it through my head a lot — how scared she must have been,” Imani told The Oregonian. “But after about a week, I pushed it away from my mind because it wasn’t helping at all.”
Menchaca had just watched her daughter play a tournament in Raleigh, N.C. the day before she flew to Washington, D.C. to testify before the Federal Drug Administration about a new drug being released by Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, Inc., where she worked in the clinical development department.
Menchaca’s FDA meeting was canceled so she boarded the American Airlines flight as a standby passenger to get home to her family sooner. She wasn’t supposed to fly out until later that day.
“Dora was an absolutely lovely person,” said Mary Ann Foote, an Amgen co-worker. “I describe her as being maternal, always concerned about those in her group, her patients, her co-workers and, especially, her family.
“That was why she was on that plane,” Foote added. “She was trying to get back to her family.”
Beug was known for her unwavering support for the girl’s cross-country track team at Santa Monica High School, where her daughters attended before graduating in June 2001.
At the team’s track meets, she would bring bagels, cream cheese and bananas for the entire team. When her daughters were freshmen, she bought all 250 track team members uniforms when the high school was short on funds. Then, when she found out the school’s track teams didn’t have warm-up suits, she provided one for every athlete on the team.
“She attended every track meet for four years,” said Samohi Athletic Director Mike Griswald. “She was great to her own kids and for every kid. She was out here all the time for these kids.
“We’re still not the same around here,” he added. “Those of us that were close to her will never be the same.”
Griswald is working with Beug’s husband, John, to build a memorial for her on the north end of the track field, where roll call is taken every day before practice.
“That way people will see it on a daily basis and be reminded always of her,” Griswald said.
Beug was flying home from Boston with her mother, Mary Wahlstrom, after a week of helping her daughters settle into their new college at the Rhode Island School of Design. The girls, both film majors, start their first day of classes today. “(The girls) are coping very well,” said Pat Cady, Samohi girl’s cross-country track coach. Cady said he talks to John Beug regularly and he visited with the twins over their summer vacation. “They are strong that way, they take after their mother.
“She was one of the single-most incredible people I have ever met in my life,” Cady said. “She was incredibly accomplished and incredibly modest.”
Both Menchaca and Beug also were successful professionally.
Beug, a former Walt Disney Records executive, was an acclaimed writer and filmmaker, who had been honored for her work on Van Halen’s “Right Now” music video. At the time of her death, she had been working on a children’s book.
Menchaca led Amgen’s team that took potential medications through the clinical trial stage, when they are administered to humans for the first time. She was often called to Washington, D.C. to testify before the FDA about the effects of the drugs.
At Amgen, Menchaca’s co-workers still collect mail sent to her from companies that haven’t learned of her fate. The correspondence is placed into Foote’s mailbox so she can call each company individually to let them know what happened to Menchaca.
“They won’t just throw this stuff away,” Foote said. “They are very protective of her. And very protective of her memory.
“We have always had people in our lives who have died or moved to other jobs that we don’t necessarily think of every day,” Foote added. “But people tell me they think about her every day and I do too.”
“We have always had people in our lives who have died or moved to other jobs that we don’t necessarily think of every day. But people tell me they think about her every day and I do too.” — — MARY ANN FOOTE Victim’s co-worker
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 11, 2002. Read the original PDF.