Benton and Stearns County Deputies To Climb 110 Flights Of Stairs For 9/11 Anniversary

(KNSI) – Deputies in Stearns and Benton counties will climb 110 flights of stairs Friday, joining a statewide effort to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Stearns County Sheriff’s Office has registered and will take part in several ways, according to Sheriff Steve Soyka. The agency’s climb starts at 10:00 a.m. Friday at the county administration building in downtown St. Cloud and runs until participants finish. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office is also signed up, with Deputy Tim Kosel among those taking part.

The 9/11 Stair Climb Challenge asks participants to climb 110 flights, roughly 2,200 steps, matching the number of stories in each of the Twin Towers. Some do it in shorts and a T-shirt; others in full firefighter turnout gear.

Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association training coordinator Matt Luitjens sent the challenge to all 87 counties in March, and says this is the first year anyone has tried to organize it statewide. “I wanted as a 25th year, I wanted to just kind of throw it out to everybody. Get that, you know, that unity back in our communities. The intent is to continue it every year going forward, hopefully.”

A few agencies have already finished their climbs; most will go Friday.

In Wright County, Sergeant Kevin Triplett will lead a group of roughly 25 people up the stairwell at the justice center in Buffalo. Triplett is also fire chief in Montrose. Triplett says climbers there will take 89 steps from the bottom floor to the top, 26 times, for 2,158 steps, riding the elevator or walking back down between trips. “We’re not doing it as a race. We’re doing it as a remembrance event. So if people come and only do one flight of stairs or they do all 110, that’s great. And I think it’s just important to remember those that so tragically lost their lives.”

Triplett climbed alone last year in his sheriff’s office uniform. At his sheriff’s urging, he will wear full turnout gear and an air pack this year, about 60 to 70 extra pounds. He says the anniversary is about more than the 343 New York City firefighters who died, pointing also to the ambulance crews, police officers and civilians killed, the firefighters who spent months at ground zero, and the service members who fought in the wars that followed.

Luitjens was working a night shift at a prison on September 11th, 2001, and was serving in the military at the time. He re-enlisted shortly after, serving 10 years in the Army National Guard, including a nine-month deployment to Egypt in 2003 with the Multinational Force and Observers. He plans to climb with the Scott County Sheriff’s Office wearing a weighted vest.

The city of St. Cloud holds its Day of Remembrance ceremony the same day at 5:00 p.m. at the St. Cloud Police Department, 101 11th Avenue North.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11th, 2001, when hijackers flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

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