Among the local ceremonies held Wednesday to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was one that’s been held each year at the Brighton campus of Monroe Community College.
Student leaders helped spur the construction of a stone memorial near the physical education building. It was dedicated in 2002.
The keynote speaker at this year’s ceremony was Jeremy Bagley, who was in the military when the 2001 attacks happened and served over a decade in the US Army. The Steuben County native now works with the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Bagley says he hopes people remember not only the lives lost 18 years ago, but look forward to how they can work together in the future.
“I also think 9/11 and the days that were before it and after it as a reminder of who we were then; we kind of came together and were very united and I think in today’s climate of political discourse and the ugliness of social media sometimes, that we can hearken back to those days,” Bagley said.
MCC President Anne Kress says she is grateful for the memorial that was built by students who didn’t want 9/11 to be something that younger student would only know through history books.
