U.S. Navy veteran and retired Secret Service agent Roy Sexton will be the guest speaker for the 11th annual 9/11 Remembrance at Middle Tennessee State University.
The public and MTSU community are invited to attend the ceremony, which is free and will be held at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, in the second-floor atrium in Miller Education Center, 503 E. Bell St., in Murfreesboro. It will be livestreamed on www.mtsu.edu/live.
Parking will be available adjacent to Miller Education Center and in a nearby lot at Bell Street and North Highland Avenue.
A retired Secret Service Agent in Charge of missions, Sexton served on the Presidential Protective Division for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Sexton, who is now vice president of corporate security at Alabama Power, led the Secret Service advance team on Bush’s visit to a Sarasota, Florida, elementary school on Sept. 11, 2001. It was there they learned of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center.
Amid the daylong chaos, Sexton, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and his team carried out the responsibilities and mission of eventually returning Bush to Washington, D.C.
The 9/11 Remembrance, coordinated by the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center, will commemorate the 24th anniversary of a series of four coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by the extremist group al-Qaida on U.S. landmarks.
“Our 9/11 Remembrance ceremony serves to honor the memory of those who perished and of those who then dedicated their lives in defense of our nation and the protection of our precious families,” said Keith M. Huber, MTSU senior adviser for veterans and leadership initiatives.
“We must never forget that evil exists and that we must focus our support and appreciation on those First Responders who protect us all,” Huber added.
The ceremony will include remarks from Huber, the singing of the national anthem by Recording Industry adjunct professor Jamie Teachenor, the reading of the 9/11 Memorial timeline by Air Force and Army ROTC cadets and taps performed by Michael Swaenpoel.
— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)
