With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, Steamboat Springs community members are commemorating the date with a Friday memorial service at the Yampa River Botanic Park and the 9/11 Never Forget Project’s planting of thousands of flags at Yampa Valley Bank.

Beginning at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10, over 10,000 American flags will be planted to honor those who died on 9/11, as well as the thousands that have died in the years since due to 9/11-related health issues from toxic fumes released as the towers collapsed.

Local resident Kyle Case launched Steamboat’s 9/11 Never Forget Project in 2015 with the help of his mother, Laura Case, and the support of Yampa Valley Bank when he was a freshman at Yampa Valley High School, according to organizer Claire Sollars.

The first year, 3,000 flags were planted on the bank’s front lawn; that number has increased each year to reflect the number of people who died as a result of the attacks. Like every year, Yampa Valley High School students will pull and store the flags following the event, said Sollars.

Those attending the flag-planting are asked to park at Freshies Restaurant (145 Trafalgar Drive).  

Additionally, longtime local resident Mary Ann Ninger will again host a memorial ceremony at the Yampa River Botanic Park on Friday, Sept. 11 at 5 p.m., rain or shine, to honor the victims. 

Ninger and her husband, Perry, who are originally from the New York area, have “strong ties” to the event, having worked at and near the World Trade Center, respectively. The couple moved to Steamboat just two months prior to 9/11. 

She said that growing up in the New York area in the 1960s and ’70s, it was a “thrill” to watch the World Trade Center towers being built. Her father worked for Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which constructed and operated the towers. Ninger said her father was “so proud of the giant monoliths rising out of lower Manhattan.”

“He used to regularly drive our whole family to a high point in New Jersey to watch the progress of the construction,” she said.  “A dream of mine always was to someday work in the towers, and I was lucky enough to do so in the late ’70s and ’80s. The World Trade Center had everything; it was a city unto itself.”

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, she and her family were “devastated.”

While every anniversary since has been tough, she said one of the best things to emerge from it are the traditions that have developed — including in places like Steamboat Springs, thousands of miles from New York City and Washington, D.C. — where, on every Sept. 11, community members gather to remember victims in a spirit of unity and camaraderie.

“We share our stories, remember and talk about all the things we have in common as Americans,” she said. “We bridge divides. It is so important to never forget.”

She said she is expecting a larger crowd than usual at the Friday service due to the quarter-century anniversary. As a result, the commemoration is being held on the green, versus at the Children’s Amphitheater like in previous years. 

The ceremony will include a brief memorial speech by a local community member, “contemplative music” and the sharing of stories from members of the public. 

The events provide local community members with an opportunity to reflect on one of the United States’ darkest days 25 years ago, when terrorists hijacked four commercial planes, two of which deliberately crashed into the north and south towers of New York City’s World Trade Center. 

The third plane crashed into the Pentagon, while the fourth plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. On 9/11, 2,977 people were killed, including 343 New York City firefighters, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority officers. At least 102 countries lost citizens in the attacks.