EKU hosts 9/11 remembrance ceremony, honorary stair climb

RICHMOND, Ky. (LEX 18) — Roughly 150 Eastern Kentucky University students and local first responders participated in an annual tradition to remember the lives lost on September 11.

The university hosted a memorial ceremony on Monday afternoon, recognizing those who lost their lives and honoring a piece of a steel I-beam from one of the Twin Towers that now has a home on campus.

The ceremony was followed by a stair climb in the Whitlock Building, with participants taking a nearly 2-hour challenge of climbing up and down 110 flights of stairs, the same amount climbed by first responders at the World Trade Center.

The climb honors the nearly 350 firefighters who lost their lives.

EKU senior and co-organizer of the event, Colby Costa, like many college students, was born after 2001.

"We try to focus a lot more on remembering what happened and allowing people to get as much of the experience of the remembrance as they can, where they don't physically remember it themselves," Costa said.

Costa grew up in New York state in a family of firefighters, making September 11^th an especially important date for his family.

"The 9/11 memorials were all very moving. They were very important, and it was definitely a big part of the culture there," he said. "It was amazing to move all the way down to Kentucky and just see how large a part of the culture it still is."

Participants from the Richmond Police Department, White Hall Volunteer Fire Department and EKU's Army ROTC program were among the groups who joined in.