photo by: AP Photo/Pamela Smith

Members of the FDNY march with flags during a memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in the Staten Island borough of New York.

Like nearly everyone my age, when the calendar turns to Sept. 11, I think about where I was on that day.

Unlike many, presumably, I also wonder about deer hunting.

For that, I have to thank the small community of Anthony — a town of about 2,100 people an hour south of Wichita. In September 2011, I traveled to Anthony to report on why this town has a 9/11 memorial that includes a beam from the World Trade Center, a stone from the Pentagon, and soil from the Shanksville, Pa. crash site.

What I learned is that a group of Anthony residents — desperate to do something, yet thousands of miles from any of the actual sites of tragedy — found a way to donate money directly to the family of a New York City firefighter who died in the attacks. A long distance connection between a NYC fire station and Anthony elementary school classes began with everything from notes to cookies being exchanged. The personal connections led to a desire to do more, and by 2004, the unique memorial in downtown Anthony was in place after locals raised more than $80,000.

I had found a great story. There was seemingly a compelling element around every corner. Then — as they are want to do and many a Kansas hood ornament can attest — a deer wandered into the scene.

A group of about five NYC firefighters had come to Anthony for the memorial’s dedication ceremony. Afterwards, they decided to engage in a little guy time with some of the fellows who had shown them around. Cold beverages were consumed, stories were swapped, and then something came up about deer hunting. These fellows from New York City hunt deer? Absolutely. They loved bow hunting.

Just like that — much like a jolt from the sky — this NYC group had a new place to hunt deer. They indeed would make the trips from New York to Kansas during deer season. One detail of those trips sticks out to me more than others. The hunters had been in the field, and the evening darkness arrived. They hadn’t returned to town. Their hosts were worried. A group of Anthony men went to the site. They found the men sprawled out — on the hood of the trucks, looking at the dark, clear night sky. “We never get to see the moon like this in New York,” one of the firefighters said when the search party arrived.

For whatever reason, that detail has stuck with me as much as any in my nearly 35-year journalism career. Maybe it is because I’m a lifelong Kansan who has never been to New York but likes the idea that we are all capable of connecting with a place different than our own, if given a chance.

Whatever, the reason, I’ve long wondered whether the connection stuck. This week — 25 years after the 9/11 attacks and 15 years after I went to Anthony — I decided to try to find out. I found the phone number for John Schott, the former Anthony mayor I interviewed in 2010. I figured he would know.

“I’m sitting here talking to Rich Kirschner,” Schott replied when I asked him about the connection. Kirschner is one of the original NYC firefighters who made Anthony his hunting home.

Kirschner — who in the aftermath of 9/11 worked four nonstop days at the World Trade Center site — won’t be in New York City for the 25-year memorial events. He’ll be in Anthony instead. Kirschner said he doesn’t need a special date on a calendar to remember. After the attacks, he worked 18 more years on the fire department. Every day at work, the station had a poster of 343 faces “looking back at you.” They were the faces of NYC firefighters who died in the attack. Since the attacks, Kirschner said, an additional 440 firefighters have died from illnesses tied to 9/11. (The numbers grow. It reportedly was more than 450 earlier this week.)

“It will be another year of wakes and funerals,” he predicted.

photo by: AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong, File

Smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center and flames and debris explode from the second tower in New York, Sept. 11, 2001.

So, yes, Kirschner is fine enough not being in New York City on this day. He’s particularly pleased to be in Anthony. His travel records can prove it. He doesn’t just come back for special occasions, but rather said he’s been back more than a dozen times. That doesn’t count the number of times Anthony residents have traveled to New York to see their NYC friends.

At some point, this quit being about deer. It quit being about the memorial, even.

“One hundred percent, this is a friendship,” Kirschner said. “It is a genuine friendship.”

It also is one that genuinely got off on the wrong foot. In the days after 9/11, Schott was in charge of trying to find an NYC firefighter family to donate approximately $2,500 that the community had raised. Through multiple, shot-in-the-dark phone calls, he finally got a lead on a fire station to call. When a firefighter answered the phone, he asked for Joe Spor, as the lead had said to do. Schott then got a very genuine set of New York expletives before the firefighter hung up the phone.

Almost immediately, Schott knew what he had done — Joe Spor was the name of the firefighter who had died, not the name he was supposed to ask for. Almost immediately, Schott knew what he had to do. He called back.

This week I asked Schott to be reflective with a couple of questions. One was whether he ever is surprised that the community of Anthony pulled together this really unique memorial? No, he said: “There was no way it wasn’t going to happen.”

The other question was what big takeaway he had from this unlikely connection that now seems to be cemented?

“Don’t ever think there is not something you can do,” Schott said. “You can always make a phone call. You can always reach out. You can always do something to help someone. It might not always work. They may not always receive it, but you can always try.”

I asked Kirschner the same question about his takeaway.

“Friendship,” he said. “Isn’t that enough?”

The 9/11 memorial in Anthony, Kansas, is seen in this screenshot from the city’s website.

The 9/11 memorial in Anthony, Kansas, is seen in this screenshot from the city’s website.