The Blue Ridge High School Athletic Booster Club held its first-ever 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb Challenge on Saturday morning.

Trey Thomas, President of the Booster Club and former Marine, has done his own memorial stair climb challenges in the past, but always completed them alone. This year, he invited the community to come out with him, to take the challenge and remember the victims of 9/11, while simultaneously supporting young athletes at the school.

“Back in 2001, America just went through Y2K and [we were] kind of at each other's throats,” Thomas said. “Then when the attacks happened, all the other stuff kind of got pushed to the side. We joined together to support our country, support our neighbors and bring back unity.”

Thomas says he hopes challenge participants feel a similar sense of unity after taking the time to honor the victims of 9/11 in this way.

“When you come together as a community, there's nothing that's impossible,” he said. “When we stand together, you can take on anything.”

The climb started at 8:46 a.m., the time the first tower was struck at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Over 20 participants came out to the challenge.

Participants took time for additional pauses throughout the challenge — at 9:03 a.m., the time that the second tower was struck; 9:37 a.m., the time the Pentagon was struck; and 10:03 a.m., the time Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew stormed the cockpit.

Chris Campos, the Student Resource Officer at Blue Ridge and a former Marine, participated in the challenge. Campos was an active Marine on Sept. 11, 2001. He led the group in the stair climb challenge, scaling the 110 stories while carrying an American flag. 

“It’s near and dear to my heart,” Campos said. “I can't imagine what everybody went through during that attack that morning. But I definitely want to keep the spirit alive of it, never forget it and honor those that have fallen.”

The Lake Cunningham Fire Department also participated in the event. According to Fire Marshall Derrick Worley, the department now has several employees who do not remember or were not born before the 2001 attacks. Worley hopes the victims’ memories can continue to be kept alive, despite the generational divide.

“For me, the importance of these events is to let the younger guys remember and keep that tradition alive,” Worley said. “A lot of [employees] that we have now weren’t born during those times, and I think it's up to us more experienced older guys to have them follow that tradition and remember this big event with fire service.”

Campos echoed this sentiment. All of the students he works with now at the high school were born after 2001. He hopes that those who do remember the events of that day will continue to honor the victims and teach the younger generations about the many first responders who lost their lives during the attack.

“We can forget things, and we just go on and get complacent,” Campos said. “And if we go on for a certain time period, then we just start not thinking about it anymore, because it's not fresh.” 

He continued: “So I think it's incumbent upon us to talk to these young guys and young girls and let them know the importance of it, and never forget those people who were brutally attacked on that morning … we need to keep this in our hearts and show our respect and come out here and keep it alive.”

Now with the first year in the books, the Booster Club plans to continue bringing this event back in upcoming years. For more information on the Blue Ridge High School Athletic Booster Club, visit their website.

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