HIGH POINT, N.C., Sept. 12, 2025 – High Point University students planted nearly 3,000 American flags at Patriots Plaza on campus and ran 110 flights of stairs in remembrance of the lives lost during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Students gathered to take part in HPU’s annual tradition of planting flags to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. They planted 2,977 flags, one for each victim who died 24 years ago. The memorial served as a reminder to faculty, staff and students to “never forget.”
Students continued their Sept. 11 tribute with a stair run fundraiser at the Cottrell Amphitheater. Two groups of students ran up and down the amphitheater’s stairs, once in the morning and again in the evening. HPU’s Student Government Association will donate $20 to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation for each of the 900 students who completed 110 flights of stairs, which represents the height of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. The SGA will donate $18,000 to the foundation.
“We continue these events year after year because remembering matters,” said SGA President Quadir Phillip, a marketing major with a minor in sales from Camden-Wyoming, Delaware. “It matters to the people whose lives were changed forever, it matters to our community, and it matters to us as students who carry the responsibility to never forget.”
The official death toll of the Sept. 11 attacks, not including the 19 terrorists, was set at 2,977 people. At the World Trade Center, 2,753 people died, including 343 firefighters. The death toll was 184 at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and 40 individuals died outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
“The stair run is a symbolic way to honor the bravery of first responders who climbed into danger, many of whom never made it back,” Phillip said. “By taking those steps ourselves, we pause to reflect on their selflessness and the resilience that has carried our nation forward. The American flag planting turns our campus into a place of remembrance. Each flag represents a life lost, and together they remind us that behind every number is a person, a family and a story.”
Savannah Cosgriff, a junior event management major from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, said it was great to see HPU’s athletic teams participating in the stair run before their practices.
“Being able to see the campus coming together was awesome,” said Cosgriff, who serves as the SGA vice president of university engagement.
HPU honors the lives lost during Sept. 11 every day on campus. Directly below the U.S. flag display in the concourse of the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena and Conference Center, approximately 3,000 pounds of steel originally used to construct the Twin Towers in New York were installed in 2022 in High Point University letters, along with the letters of “God. Family. Country.” David Griffin, CEO of D.H. Griffin Company, provided the steel from the Twin Towers site after his company conducted the site restoration work.
“For our own HPU community, these moments of remembrance hold special weight,” Phillip said. “We have students, faculty members and families nearby whose hearts are deeply touched by 9/11. For them and for all who still feel the effects of that day, this is a time to honor, to grieve and to stand together at High Point University.”