By Marisa Dawson, Courtesy Photos

Bennington’s remembrance of the 343 firefighters who died on September 11, 2001, did not end with the memorial and football halftime honors. It continued through annual memorial events, including Nebraska’s 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at Werner Park in Papillion.

Bennington firefighters Jake Needham and Clint Ruppert participated in this year’s climb on Saturday, September 12, joining firefighters, law enforcement officers, family members and others from across the region in climbing the equivalent of the stairs the fallen firefighters ascended inside the World Trade Center.

The 2026 Nebraska 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb included an opening ceremony before participants began the climb at 8:30 a.m. Organizers invited participants to register individually or as teams, with the event centered on honoring and remembering the 343 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice on September 11, 2001.

The Werner Park climb is designed to replicate the 110 stories of the World Trade Center towers that firefighters and other first responders faced while attempting to rescue people on September 11. 

For Needham, the climb is both physically demanding and deeply humbling.

“It’s a very humbling experience participating in a memorial event that remembers and honors the lives lost on 9/11, especially those 343 firefighters,” Needham said. “We do it to honor those lives and the sacrifices they made on that day 25 years ago.”

Knowing the purpose behind the climb, and being surrounded by others enduring the same challenge, helps participants keep going.

“The climb is very challenging but knowing why we’re doing it and having other firefighters enduring the same experience makes it well worth it,” Needham said.

The climb also gives participants an opportunity to remember the fallen firefighters individually. Past Nebraska stair climbs have included participants carrying or climbing in honor of specific fallen firefighters, with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation maintaining memorial pages where climbers can share tributes to the individuals they honored.

Ruppert said the climb brings him back to the events of September 11 and the decisions made by firefighters who entered the towers despite not knowing what awaited them.

“As I am climbing, I remember that day. The feelings, the emotions, knowing that they went in not knowing what was going to happen. But they went. They didn’t stop, they had a job to do.”

The physical challenge of the climb is ultimately secondary to its purpose: keeping the memory of those who died alive for future generations.

“Every year that goes by, every climb, is another way to hope that people not only continue to remember, but that they teach the next generation,” Ruppert said. “That doing something for others is one of the greatest feelings you can have.”

He said the event also reflects the sacrifices that first responders continue to make outside of the moments when they are called upon to help: “That we don’t do this job to be famous, but to be there when we are needed. The countless hours of classes, of training, lost time with family, or just as simple as some lost sleep.”

Needham similarly emphasized that the stair climb is not about the firefighters participating today, but about honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice 25 years ago.

“I hope that people see that these events are not about us as firefighters or first responders, but that it’s a tribute to those who made that sacrifice so many years ago,” Needham said.

The Nebraska stair climb has become a community effort, drawing groups from fire departments, law enforcement agencies, fraternities and families of firefighters.

“Every year that I’ve participated in the Nebraska stair climb, there are groups from all over the area,” Needham said. “Some of those groups include other fire departments, law enforcement agencies, fraternities, and even family members of firefighters.”

“It is a community effort to preserve the memory of those individuals that climbed the towers 25 years ago,” he added.

The stair climb event has continued as part of Nebraska’s broader 9/11 remembrance efforts, bringing participants together at the Papillion ballpark to retrace, in a symbolic way, the climb faced by firefighters in New York.

For Ruppert, that preservation of memory is ultimately what brings him back to the stairs each year: “I climb for them, because as long as they are remembered, and their names are said, they are never truly gone.”