KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For Kelly Shipe, 9/11 is personal.
"I used to go to New York a lot and I would see the faces of those officers and the firefighters," she remembered. "So when all that happened, I saw those faces again, they just flashed in front of me. I knew a lot of those guys were in there."
So her way of honoring the victims of the attacks is by playing the bagpipes every year at the city's 9/11 memorial.
Just a couple of blocks down the road on World's Fair Park, hundreds of first responders gathered for the Memorial Stair Climb. The climb is meant to represent the more than 100 floors firefighters climbed as they rushed into the towers rescuing people in the moments before the towers fell.
DJ Corcoran, a retired Knoxville firefighter who organized the event, also remembers the aftermath of 9/11 like it was yesterday.
"We went through several motions," he mentioned. "We were angry, we were upset, we were in disbelief that this was happening, we felt vulnerable."
But it has been 21 years since the terrorist attacks and an entire generation of people was not even born yet. So whether it is at the city-county building's 9/11 memorial or down at World's Fair Park, community leaders say 9/11 is about educating and making sure we never forget.
"I just want everybody to remember it," Shipe said. "And I know there is young people that never experienced the time, but they need to know what went on in America."