By ROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times The year 2026 has found millions of Americans celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The year likewise marks the landmark 25th anniversary of a more tragic event in the nation’s history. Sept. 11, 2001, two jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City, while another crashed into the pentagon in Arlington, Va. While the Twin Towers collapsed, passengers on Flight 93 averted even more destruction by trying to regain control of that airplane, and as a result, the hijackers downed it in a field outside of Shanksville, Pa. As the days following 9/11 continued, first responders, including firefighters, were left picking up the wreckage of what was left of the Twin Towers. In the more than two decades later, many schools and organizations throughout America have honored the nation’s first responders with ceremonies. Since 2003, Liberal’s Cottonwood Elementary School has honored local first responders with its annual Patriot Day ceremony, and in 2025, the Seward County Fire Department joined the school with an observance of its own. The fire department marked the day with a 9/11 Stair Climb, the first of which took place to support the mission of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation on Sept. 11, 2005. That year, five Colorado firefighters convened at a high-rise building in downtown Denver to climb 110 flights of stairs in memory of their Fire Department of New York brothers who were killed in the 9/11 attacks. Saturday morning, Sept. 12, the SCFD will have its second annual climb at Redskin Field at Liberal High School. The climb is being coordinated by Lt. Joann Rivera and Public Information Officer Morgan West. West said the 110 flights of stairs of the climb were simulated at Redskin Field prior to last year’s event. “We counted the steps so we could do what they did that day on 9/11,” she said. Rivera said she got the idea for a local event after being invited to a climb a few years ago in Pratt. “Due to staffing, I couldn’t go, and no one else could go,” she said. “It was something I thought about. I kept thinking about it.” Rivera later brought the idea up to West and Deputy Fire Chief Jacob Winters, and the group talked and planned the event out, eventually making the climb a group project. “We did our own thing last year,” Rivera said. “Last year was rushed. We didn’t know what to do, how to do it. This year, we’re a little more ahead of the game.” Rivera said T-shirts have been ordered for this year’s climb, and anyone who participates will receive a patch. “It’s a $5 sign-up if you don’t want a T-shirt,” she said. “They get a patch from our department. It was in the works for a couple of years, but we didn’t get to do anything until last year.” Rivera said West had reminded her of the landmark 25th anniversary, and this is where the group got the idea of making the day even more special with T-shirts. Rivera too has been a participant for several years in Cottonwood’s Patriot Day, but West said doing an event like the climb in firefighter gear made the event more real. “It’s like this is what they went through,” West said. “We can take breaks and have a water break, but they couldn’t.” West said Rivera, neither of whom were alive at the time of 9/11, wanted to do the climb to provide another honor for local first responders. “For us, it’s nice to see we have people from Meade County, Beaver County, Seward County, city fire,” West said. “I like that comradery of everyone coming together to do something important.” West said this year’s climb will likely have more representation from area first responders than last year’s, and Rivera said she felt excitement as others joined in the ceremony as well for the event’s first edition. “The run club joined us last year,” Rivera said. “I sent an e-mail out, and someone from the college was in the run club. She informed everyone from the run club, and they showed up. They were the ones who were asking me a couple times throughout the year, ‘Are we doing it again this year?’ I made sure I invited them. I had a city firefighter tell me he used to do the stair climb at a gym on a stairmaster.” West said the run club is back for this year’s climb, and county firefighters have some friends and family joining them for the event as well. “We put it out there for everyone to join if they want to,” she said. The local 9/11 Stair Climb will take place starting at 6 a.m. Sept. 12 at Redskin Field. Participants will need to register and can do so on the Seward County Fire Department Facebook page. “There’s a couple posts that have the registration,” West said. “They need to fill it out so we get their information. Either the day of, we’ll collect their registration fee, or they can come in and pay it throughout the week.” As the day event draws closer, West, Rivera and Fire Chief Mike Rice are getting more excited about the climb. “There’s been a couple of them within the vicinity of Liberal, but last year was the first time there’d been one here,” Rice said. “We did one for a couple of years, and it fell off. I think Perryton did it one year.” Rivera said LHS officials have been very cooperative about the use of Redskin Field for the event. “I talked to the high school about the stadium, if we could use it, and they said ‘Yeah,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Alright, we can go up and down the stairs and make up for whatever.’” Rice said the climb will make a great addition to Patriot Day. “It’s a really big deal especially in big cities,” he said of the climb. Likewise, Rice said Cottonwood does an excellent program for Patriot Day. “They’ve done great, and I love it,” he said.