The announcement Saturday that the winning design for the Flight 93 National Memorial will be unveiled in Washington, D.C., -- and not in Shanksville, where the plane crashed -- was met with support by those who have been working with the project in Somerset County for more than three years.

The idea of moving the culminating point in the process out of the community that has grown to be its home was surprising at first, but the reasoning behind it was not.

"It became evident we'd get much more coverage if we took the announcement to a major media center," said Christopher Martin, of MARC USA, the Pittsburgh public relations firm hired to promote the memorial project.

News media coverage as the project moves into the construction phase soon after the announcement is essential in raising $30 million to build the memorial. A national campaign, being led by retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks who is serving as honorary chairman, was kicked off last week.

To get the attention needed to generate donations, it made sense to the public relations people, as well as to the federal advisory commission, to move the announcement.

Members of the commission, which has helped to shepherd the memorial from fledgling idea to 3-D models, voted unanimously to move the announcement to Sept. 7 in the nation's capital. A specific location and time have not yet been chosen.

Five finalists in the design competition were chosen from among 1,006 entries. Their designs will be on display in Somerset Friday through Sept. 25.

Donna Glessner, vice chairwoman of the commission and coordinator of the Flight 93 ambassadors program at the temporary memorial, supports moving the announcement.

"I feel there is a very strong connection between what happened on Flight 93 and Washington, D.C.," said Glessner, who lives in Shanksville.

The United Airlines Flight 93 plane left Newark, N.J., and was headed to San Francisco, when terrorists hijacked it and the 40 passengers and crew members on board.

A federal report showed they had planned to fly to Washington, D.C., to crash the plane, probably into either the White House or U.S. Capitol building.

Moving the announcement will not take away from the fourth anniversary ceremonies that will be held at the Somerset County crash site, Glessner said.

"Sept. 11 is always going to happen in Shanksville," she said.

She believes the Flight 93 crash site, in a reclaimed strip mine, has received less news media attention than the Pentagon and World Trade Center for a couple of reasons.

"There are not the images we have of burning buildings and rescue people [like] in Washington and New York," Glessner said. "Fortunately, we don't have 1,000 victims here. We have 40 families."

An average of 2,000 people each week still stop to pay tribute at the temporary memorial.

"People call it the forgotten site," Glessner said. "I don't feel forgotten at all. It's here everyday, and it's impacted life in a lot of ways."

For right now, Glessner believes her groups have more than enough to handle in Shanksville.

More than 130,000 visitors stop each year at the temporary memorial. They are tended to by 40 volunteer community ambassadors, and have to travel a dirt, township road to get there, she said.

"We're really not prepared," she said. "I'm satisfied with the pace things are happening out here. I feel like we've been running a marathon here to get to this point."

Barbara Black, curator of the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County, has been gathering things left at the temporary site for years. Eventually, more than 20,000 items that have been left there will be given to the permanent site.

Black likes the idea of moving the announcement of the winning design to Washington.

"That's where the plane was headed. I think it helps to pull all of us together," Black said.