UCM to Observe Patriot Day With Ceremony on Sept. 11

Nearly 3,000 small American flags fill the University of Central Missouri quad for the 2024 Patriot Day ceremony.
The 2025 event will take place at 10 a.m. Sept. 11.

 

The University of Central Missouri (UCM) will honor those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a Patriot Day ceremony at 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, at the UCM quadrangle.

The observance, which is expected to last about 15 minutes, is coordinated by the UCM Office of Military and Veteran Services in cooperation with the Warrensburg Fire Department, the Johnson County Fire Protection District and UCM’s Army ROTC Fighting Mules Battalion. 

Courtney Swoboda, director of Military and Veteran Services, and a UCM service member student, will offer brief remarks to open the ceremony. The UCM Army ROTC flag detail will lower the flag to half-staff, followed by a moment of silence. To close out the event, the Warrensburg Fire Department will conduct the ringing of the bell ceremony.

In addition to the remembrance event, the quad will be filled with 2,977 small American flags in memory of the lives lost during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the hijacking and crash of a passenger airplane in a Pennsylvania field. 

Military and Veteran Services staff will place the flags on Tuesday, Sept. 9, with the help of the Army ROTC Fighting Mules Battalion, Air Force ROTC Detachment 440 and Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. The flags will remain until Thursday evening, Sept. 11.

Members of the campus community and the public are welcome to attend the event, which UCM hosts annually to remember those who died in the attacks and to honor the heroes who served bravely.

In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will be in the Ward Edwards Building atrium.

 

Members of the UCM Army ROTC flag detail prepare to post the American flag
at half-staff during the 2024 Patriot Day ceremony at UCM.