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Last Saturday I climbed 110 floors at Bristol Motor Speedway with a name on a tag around my neck, as one of the climbers at the Tri-Cities 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb. The story of how that event ended up at a racetrack runs straight through Kingsport. So do the people who built it, and they deserve more credit than they would ever ask for.

In today's post:

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In September 2001, I was six years old. I remember the energy in my school being completely off that day. I remember the adults in the room, the people whose job was to keep everything steady, looking shaken. It is one of my core memories.

Twenty-five years later, I carried the name of a New York firefighter who died because of that day up 110 flights of stairs.

At 9 a.m. last Saturday, the stands at Bristol Motor Speedway filled with people climbing stairs while radio traffic from 9/11 played over the speakers. Firefighters in full gear. Hose packs on shoulders. Every climber wearing a tag with the name of a first responder lost to September 11.

I have climbed it before, and I have spent several years filming it. This year my tag read Lieutenant Robert M. Hess.

Bobby Hess was born in Brooklyn, one of seven kids. He joined the FDNY in August 1985, started at Engine Company 26 in Manhattan, made lieutenant in 2000, and spent his last five years at Ladder Company 76 on Staten Island. He died of 9/11-related cancer on May 2, 2010, three months short of twenty-five years on the job. The FDNY has now lost more than 400 members to World Trade Center illnesses, more than the 343 who died that morning.

The math of the climb is simple. 110 flights, the height of the World Trade Center. Roughly 2,200 steps. When you finish, you walk to a bell, read the name out loud, and ring it.

Most people who make that walk at the speedway think of it as a Bristol event.

It started in Kingsport.

Andrew Catron is a Kingsport firefighter, originally from Chilhowie, Virginia. Before there was a Tri-Cities climb, he and his friends were traveling to other people's. Nashville. Charlotte. Indianapolis. The format itself came out of Denver, where the original climb grew popular enough that in 2010 its organizers partnered with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to build a template any city could follow.

About a dozen of them climbed the parking garage at Holston Valley Medical Center. The next day, many of them drove to Charlotte to climb there, and they decided it would be their last trip out of town for a climb. The next year, they would put everything into hosting their own.

No stadium. No sound system. A hospital garage and a handful of people who had decided this mattered.

The next year, about 100 people climbed. Then 343. Then 500. Then 600. Catron has said the goal was to grow it at a pace the team could actually manage. The climb stayed at Holston Valley for five years, and when COVID hit, it moved to Bristol Motor Speedway, where it has been ever since. Recent years have run around 700 climbers, and Catron puts this year at roughly 775. They come from as far off as California, and one year a woman from Australia who saw a TV report reached out to ask if she could climb.

The largest sponsor that first year gave $100. Last year, Hard Rock Bristol handed over a $15,000 check.

This year's climb raised around $90,000. Through 2024, the first ten climbs had brought in $493,874 combined. The money supports the FDNY Counseling Services Unit and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's programs for the families of fallen firefighters. Catron says the Tri-Cities climb ranks consistently among the top five earning climbs in the country, out of one of the most rural areas that hosts one.

A region this size, outraising cities several times bigger. Every year.

Behind that number is a small group of people who spend most of the year working toward a single Saturday, and a lot of them work out of Kingsport fire stations. Catron coordinates the climb, and his wife, Chanel, works it every year. Jared Lindholm, a battalion chief with the Kingsport Fire Department, serves on the event committee. Dustin Sims, a Kingsport firefighter, is part of the team that puts it on.

The committee has lost one of its own. Fred McGrew started with the Bluff City Rescue Squad, joined Sullivan County EMS in 1985, and retired as a captain and paramedic in January 2021. He served on the stair climb committee. He died later that year. Sullivan County EMS Station 4 in Kingsport is dedicated in his honor. Jared Lindholm is his stepson.

Each year the climb also recognizes the region's own emergency responders who have died since the last one. Fred's name belongs to that list now.

This year's climb was the twelfth. It landed the day after the 25th anniversary, which is long enough for a date to start going quiet in a lot of places. Around 775 people spending a Saturday morning on the stairs of a racetrack is one way to keep that from happening here. Catron has said the climb will keep going for as long as the community supports it.

So far, the community keeps showing up.

If you have never done it, mark next September now. Train a little. Pick up a tag. Ring the bell.

A dozen people in a parking garage on Cassell Drive started this.

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A few things worth getting off your couch for:

Scenic Planetarium Yoga | Saturday, Sept. 19, 10 a.m. | Bays Mountain Park A yoga class held inside the planetarium theater, with a simulated sun and moon crossing a full day overhead. A good use of a Saturday morning for anyone whose legs are still recovering from last weekend. Details

SMILE Foster Closet Rummage Sale | Friday 5 to 7 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Waverly Road Presbyterian Church Stuff a bag with clothes for $5 and pick up shoes for $2 a pair, in sizes from infant to adult. Foster families shop for free, and every dollar goes to SMILE Foster Closet. Details

Tri-Cities Card Show | Saturday, 9 a.m. | MeadowView Conference Resort & Convention Center Trading card collectors from across the Tri-Cities, all in one room. Bring the binder you have been meaning to sort. Details

One place in this town doing the work.

Hope Helps TN A no-cost food pantry and clothing closet at 4540 West Stone Drive, staffed entirely by volunteers. Food, clothes, household items, and furniture and appliances when they have them. Open Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment, with a limited number of walk-ins Thursday mornings. They hit ten years this month and are throwing an open house this Saturday from 3 to 7 at the pantry, with food, music and games. The standing need is hands: lifting, sorting boxes, computer work, running fundraisers. Director Connie Johnson has said for years that the demand runs ahead of the volunteers. Help out

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The living room runs two stories, with a custom feature wall built around the fireplace: display shelving, closed storage, and a spot cut in for the television, so nobody has to argue about where it goes. Engineered hardwood throughout. Enough windows that the room does the work without help.

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The primary suite sits on the main level behind double French doors, with a Roman soaking tub, a tiled walk-in shower with multiple heads, and a walk-in closet. A second main-level bedroom works as an office or a nursery.

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The basement is heated and cooled and opens to its own lower deck. Two-car garage. No HOA.

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