To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, City of Odessa first responders and the Permian Basin Better Business Bureau are planning a caravan of emergency vehicles that will drive down Chris Kyle Memorial Highway on Saturday morning.
Beginning at 8:46 a.m. (the time that Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center), the Odessa Fire Department, the Odessa Police Department and the Ector County Sherriff’s Office units will turn on their sirens and head down the Chris Kyle Memorial Highway from the intersection of 42nd Street and Kermit Highway on the west side of Odessa, and finish at the Chris Kyle Memorial. The event will be called Never Forgotten: The 20th Anniversary of 9/11.
“We’ll have them line up and get ready to head down the Chris Kyle Memorial Highway,” Regional Director of the Permian Basin Better Business Bureau Dustin Fawcett said. “The minute that 8:46 a.m. comes along, they’re going to turn on their sirens as if they’re responding to an emergency. They’re going to culminate at the Chris Kyle Memorial Statue off 191 off the service road where the Wilson and Young VA Clinic is.”
Once the motorcade has arrived at the Chris Kyle Memorial (located off TX-191 Frontage road), local radio station KWEL-AM will broadcast the ceremony live on 107.1-FM and 1070-AM which will include remarks from Fawcett, Ector County Sherriff Mike Griffis, Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke, Odessa Fire Rescue Chief John Alvarez and others.
During the motorcade procession, KWEL-AM will play patriotic music and invite attendees, both in-person and remote, to tune in at 8:46 a.m. to listen to the entire ceremony.
Fawcett said the decision to have the motorcade end at the Chris Kyle Memorial is a symbolic gesture of all the people who joined the armed forces in the War on Terror.
“We wanted to do that because we begin the ceremony with the symbolic gesture of when the tower was first struck and our emergency responders responded to it,” Fawcett said. “Ending at the Chris Kyle Memorial represents Chris Kyle and all the rest of the armed forces guys. When they found out that we had been attacked by terrorists, they signed up for the armed forces to fight the evil in the world. We’re going to have everyone finish there and once they’re there, we’re going to begin a ceremony to commemorate and have folks tune-in.”
The remarks from local authorities will be broadcast to attendees. The event is estimated to be complete at 10 a.m. but could go on longer depending on the length and number of remarks given.
“We wanted to do it that way so that anyone who wants to participate can without worries of COVID and social distancing,” Fawcett said.
The speakers at the event will discuss Sept. 11 and what it means to them, both personally and professionally.
Fawcett says the biggest thing he hopes people will get out of this event is the reflection of how far the country has come and how much the world has changed since Sept. 11, 2001.
“You have everyone coming together at Chris Kyle Memorial and that coming together is significant,” Fawcett said. “Of all the forces and all the emergency and citizens coming together unified. That’s what I’m hoping people get out it. We were never more unified than on that day. The first responders didn’t ask survivors or people in the rubble if they were a Democrat or a Republican. We were all Americans and everyone worked together to save those people. Everyone in American came together to realize that this was an attack on our way of life and this is something I want people to reflect on. We’re so divided right now and I want people to see the camaraderie that really exists in society that we don’t highlight enough.”
If you go
- What: Never Forgotten: The 20th Anniversary of 9/11.
- When: Saturday. The motorcade will start at 8:46 a.m.
- Where: Western end of Chris Kyle Memorial Highway- intersection of 42nd street and Kermit Highway to the Chris Kyle Memorial at TX-191 Frontage, Odessa.
